EU threatening to cut off supply of vaccines to UK

[Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady]

Because they've not got enough apparently (despite the fact that they've got a shit load of AZ stockpiled because they've mostly stopped using it)

This is really starting to piss me off now, and has someone who is due 2nd Pfizer jab in 8 weeks in starting to worry I won't get it!

They're threatening to stop supply to USA too.

Wankers

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/ursula-von-der-leyen-threatens-cut-off-covid-exports-uk-b924652.html

Unbelievable

www.politico.eu/article/italian-authorities-discover-29m-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-doses-la-stampa/

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

What I am finding slightly outrageous is the way the narrative in Europe (as seen on the FBs of friends based there) seems to be entirely based around the argument that they exported us loads of vaccines and we didn’t export them any- as if the AZ vaccine is entirely a European invention and product rather than the result of a complicated multinational effort in which the UK had something of a role. The way they are talking you would not guess that we had anything to do with creating or funding it.

I think the average man or woman on the street in uk or Europe are too clued up on the mechanics and details of the vaccines. Who funded what. The details of each contract. Many I guess maybe unaware that we send component of vaccines to Europe and have done since manufacturing began. Most people care about when will I get my vaccine. When will my family.. I don't know which country you based in but the politician and some extent main stream media can paint the narrative to way that favourable to them and no one question's it. The attack on UK being scapegoats has always been a mass deflection exercise. Which sounds like its working then with your freinds.

I really try to read range media from left to right in the UK and also US or European media companies and in still none the wiser what will happen next.
At end of day jabs in arms as quick as possible whats needed now.
I don't think supply issue is the problem vib most countries its not like their fridges are empty.
Saw Netherlands has increasd restrictions over increased rates in euro news this morning..
BBC said Boris made some comment then withdrew it.
This morning UK media apart from guardian bit quiet probably blow up tommorow when they have their big meeting.
We can cope without az.
We can't cope without phizer and moderna vaccines we due very shortly.

They just keep making unfounded accusation

www.bbc.com/news/45877605

We have never banned exports of components.
We have sent vaccines outside of mainland UK.
Apparently a French national with close ties to macron.

Ye gods!

Is anyone else now thinking about the journey of an egg? All this reciprocity stuff, we send to you and you send some back thing is just like the old EU idea of how to get a cheap egg.

Grow it, grade it, clean it pack it, send it off on a journey through however many borders it takes to get an EU rebate and then bring it home and sell it at a nice low price. Took about 2 weeks.

Maybe that's how we will end up doing vaccines!

[quote Baileysforchristmas]Unbelievable

www.politico.eu/article/italian-authorities-discover-29m-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-doses-la-stampa/[/quote]
Quite a dangerous and provocative article

My first thought is they make it sound like small change down the side of the sofa.
I have to say I question the Italian factory ability to manage inventory as in last few weeks they lost 250k doses that were bound for Australia.
Now they found 2.9 million doses sent from Netherlands factory which can't be used by EU until ema authorise but they feel sure their little investigation / witch hunt has uncovered 2 9million doses that belong to uk. What a home goal they can block them.
Wonder what expiry date is on them.

I have a feeling this will get messy and nasty it won't end well.
Another article suggested rather than target vaccines ban we start implementing tarrifs on other eu exports..
Also if government fail to allow British to eu for Holidays thats very damaging to some EU countries.
I think the gloves will be off.
We will continue to have good relations with Ireland but the rest of them this could set eu uk relations back years.
Internationally makes eu look dire.
Mentions states too but are eu even sending any vaccines to USA thought they all made domestically there.

Block vaccine exports, and we block component exports. No one gets any vaccines that way.
Share vaccines and everyone gets some. This is not a UK vs EU argument even if VDL seems to want to make it into one. EU contract is with AZ and they are doing what it says on paper. EU have a bad contract, but that does not justify cutting the paid for supply of other nations.
If the EU do this then I hope Oxford/AZ ban all booster information. And I can see companies not wanting to base themselves in EU as this will prevent them making money. UK could demand money back from AZ for breach of contract.
I hope sense prevails or no one will get vaccinated in Europe. But there are some idiots involved so I'm scared.
And just imagine if they block our supplies and then leave AZ in fridges to go out of date (as it's doing now). That's tantamount to murder. I love Europe but not so much the leaders at the moment.

[quote Baileysforchristmas]Unbelievable

www.politico.eu/article/italian-authorities-discover-29m-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-doses-la-stampa/[/quote]
There are suggestions on twitter that these vaccines were destined for Canada and Mexico.

Holy shit, so they have already done it if we are to believe that article bailey

Which would actually explain why Boris was calling European leaders - which kind of came out of nowhere, and seemed to me an escalation at the time, given no decision from the EU has been confirmed.

Europe are totally split down the middle on this, unity is a distant memory. Some sensible countries like the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland understand fully the implications and consequences and are arguing that it is totally counter productive and very damaging for the EU's reputation.

This is going to be very interesting, to see what happens now.

**to the

The latest article to me Implies the eu commission have perhaps raided the halix factories order books and gone on a vaccine hunt

The article suggests its uk..could me Mexico or Canada.
Good job Biden said last week he share with them .
We know they raided the Belgian factory in January.
They want to see confidential orders to other countries.

Actually we could survive without Pfizer. I saw an epidemiologist on a news a few weeks ago sat that if necessary we could mix vaccines - give AZ as a second dose where Pfizer had been given first and there's no reason why that would be problematic. Obviously people would prefer the same each time but if necessary we could do this.

El Pais newspaper today:

It’s going to be make-or-break for the European Commission during the four weeks of April,” warns Nicolás González Casares, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) with the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats who also sits on the parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee monitoring the vaccination strategy.

“If the dose distribution speed does not pick up at the beginning of the second quarter, the EU Commission will face an explosive political situation, with a rising wave of infections, a population that is increasingly weary of restrictions and governments that will blame Brussels for the mess,” he predicts.

english.elpais.com/society/2021-03-22/astrazeneca-fiasco-undermines-eu-strategy-to-beat-coronavirus-health-and-economic-crisis.html

Who will want to do business with the EU after this!

I think that is the point Michael Martin is trying to make, you just can not start requisitioning factories, effectively stealing vaccines from ports and slapping export bans just because you screwed up your procurement!

It is shocking, I can hardly believe it - when I really consider how hostile this action is and with great opposition from member governments within the EU itself too. It is now turning into a bigger crisis, and snowballing now. We need some grown ups, can someone please get the adults into the room.

This was a particularly interesting angle:

"At the political level, the EU Parliament is starting to lose patience with its own executive, and could start asking for accountability if the vaccination campaign derails in the second quarter of the year.

“The Commission asked to lead the vaccination strategy without having the powers to do so, and once member states agreed to hand over this power, it has proven incapable of organizing [the campaign],” says an EU source familiar with the situation.

Faced with the risk of having her own leadership questioned, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has begun adopting a tougher tone against the United Kingdom, where AstraZeneca factories have yet to produce a single dose for delivery to the EU. Von der Leyen on Wednesday warned that nothing is being ruled out, not even a ban on vaccine exports from the EU to Britain, which has already received 10 million doses from the continent (mostly from Pfizer-BioNTech), while none have made the opposite journey.

Véronique Trillet-Lenoir, a French MEP with the liberal group Renew and member of the Health and Environment Committee, says that the time has come for the EU to “show its teeth” to AstraZeneca and, by extension, to the UK"

@Itsalonghaul

This was a particularly interesting angle:

"At the political level, the EU Parliament is starting to lose patience with its own executive, and could start asking for accountability if the vaccination campaign derails in the second quarter of the year.

“The Commission asked to lead the vaccination strategy without having the powers to do so, and once member states agreed to hand over this power, it has proven incapable of organizing [the campaign],” says an EU source familiar with the situation.

Faced with the risk of having her own leadership questioned, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has begun adopting a tougher tone against the United Kingdom, where AstraZeneca factories have yet to produce a single dose for delivery to the EU. Von der Leyen on Wednesday warned that nothing is being ruled out, not even a ban on vaccine exports from the EU to Britain, which has already received 10 million doses from the continent (mostly from Pfizer-BioNTech), while none have made the opposite journey.

Véronique Trillet-Lenoir, a French MEP with the liberal group Renew and member of the Health and Environment Committee, says that the time has come for the EU to “show its teeth” to AstraZeneca and, by extension, to the UK"

If most of the 10m is Pfizer where are we getting the AZ from?

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Actually we could survive without Pfizer. I saw an epidemiologist on a news a few weeks ago sat that if necessary we could mix vaccines - give AZ as a second dose where Pfizer had been given first and there's no reason why that would be problematic. Obviously people would prefer the same each time but if necessary we could do this.

Ok that’s good.

Do the EU mostly have control over Pfizer stock or is there a large amount of AZ that they can stop?

I think that is the point Michael Martin is trying to make, you just can not start requisitioning factories, effectively stealing vaccines from ports and slapping export bans just because you screwed up your procurement!

It's a fair point.

On the article posted above, the vaccines found in Italy were possibly destined for Canada Mexico and covax.

mobile.twitter.com/BrunoBrussels/status/1374660866243715075

Also how about Moderna? Can that be stalled?

This is what happens to the EU when the UK leaves, we need to go in and sort it out but the EU would never admit they need help from the UK

I think with AZ they could stop the UK getting any supplies from the supply chain in the EU - even though the UK helped finance and set it up. It's piracy really. But our own supply chain in the UK for AZ is ahead of schedule for expansion and was supposed to supply the EU once the UK contract had been met. Obviously if the EU prevent export to the UK then it's short sighted because the UK could later on cut off the UK supply chain in return.
The EU could block Pfizer but again, given the UK supplies the lipids and the temperature sensor it would be cutting their nose off to spite their face. Unless the USA is willing to do that for the EU.
I think the UK could carry on making our own AZ but roll out would be slowed down until our increased capacity is fully up and running.
The whole thing is so sad though and totally avoidable. I don't understand why the EU didn't just ask - most people would have (I think) supported a slight slowing down of our own roll out to give elderly people in the EU their vaccination. VDL has pissed everyone off but honestly no one here wants old people in Europe to be dying.

The 29 million doses stored in Italy would square with the suggestion on the previous page that Halix has been happily churning out 5 million a month since September.

Some of which will have expired/shortly be about to expire.

Dear God, can't we just get them out of their boxes and into arms? Somewhere? Anywhere, frankly. Because this is insane.

start asking for accountability if the vaccination campaign derails in the second quarter of the year

Reading between the lines. The accountability I assume is VDL and her resignation. It would now make sense why Merkel has decided to wade in, with very little of her famed judgement. If the VDL is removed, who will replace her? This will very much change the political dynamic at the top of the commission.

@Itsalonghaul not just resignation.

She's a doctor, right?

Redeploy her to a covid ward. Not ITU - not somewhere where people have a faint hope of recovery - but one of the wards where people who don't meet ITU criteria are put to die.

Let her make the calls to the about-to-be-bereaved. Let her see the true price of her incompetence and grand-standing.

most people would have (I think) supported a slight slowing down of our own roll out to give elderly people in the EU their vaccination. VDL has pissed everyone off but honestly no one here wants old people in Europe to be dying.

But would they be used for the elderly, given what's been said about the lack of effectiveness in over 65s? I'd be annoyed if doses that were intended for UK under 50s were taken and given to under 50s in the EU.

Dear God, can't we just get them out of their boxes and into arms? Somewhere? Anywhere, frankly. Because this is insane

Yes, absolutely. Whatever else may or may not have gone wrong, heads should roll if doses are being wasted.