EU threaten to cut off vaccine supply to the UK 3

[EasterIssland]

Thread 2 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4200959-EU-threaten-to-cut-off-vaccine-supply-to-the-UK-2?pg=1

France has been doing well for the last week or so I think and Germany definitely for the last few days.

I thing we're hoping/keeping our fingers crossed that the various campaigns are like a diesel engine that has finally got going and is starting to pick up RPM ...only query is how much fuel is actually in the tank and how easy will it be to refuel...

only query is how much fuel is actually in the tank and how easy will it be to refuel

Hopefully all that is needed!

Selfishly, it's much better for the UK if our nearest neighbours (both france & Ireland) are vaccinated.

The rest of the EU too of course.

France, which had a slow start to its inoculation rollout, will make vaccinations with the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson jabs available to all citizens over the age of 55 on Monday, AFP reports.

Wonder whether it’s because of the suspected clots in j&j

COMMISSION SET ASTRAZENECA ULTIMATUM: In a March 19 letter, the European Commission gave AstraZeneca a 20-day deadline to remedy breaches of its vaccine purchase agreement with the EU, but the ultimatum passed without shortfalls being addressed, Les Echos and Il Corriere della Sera reported over the weekend.

“AstraZeneca has violated and continues to violate its contractual obligations on the production and supply of the initial 300 million doses for Europe,” reads the letter by Sandra Gallina, the Director General of the Commission’s health directorate, according to the newspapers. The drugmaker had concluded an agreement with the Commission to deliver 90 million of the 300 million doses within the first quarter of the year, but was only able to deliver about 30 million by March 31. According to the reports, the Commission does not believe AstraZeneca undertook “best efforts” to deliver the promised vaccines, as it was contractually obliged to do. That could lead to legal action.

Yes let's take legal action and cause even more fucking expense and hold ups to a not for profit vaccine that we already haggled down to below the not for profit price. That'll help the world get the vaccines they need and the EU plants focus on sorting out their production issues so they can get up to full capacity.

What fucking benefit is there to taking legal action against a vaccine company right now in the middle of this crisis?

At this point it really would be worth pulling out our investment in Helix plant and spending it on massively upping production here so that it can be freely exported to those who need it rather than held hostage in Europe whilst the company gets tied up in red tape and now legal action. If we have equipment and manpower there it should come back here.

@TheHoneyBadger

At this point it really would be worth pulling out our investment in Helix plant and spending it on massively upping production here so that it can be freely exported to those who need it rather than held hostage in Europe whilst the company gets tied up in red tape and now legal action. If we have equipment and manpower there it should come back here.

I believe its too late we already invested possibly 22 million in halix plant..

At end if day threats legal action won't make vaccines suddenly appear.

What did I miss with j &j have there been many cases of blood clots?
Its similar type vaccine to az but then and again so is sputnik.

The ceo of az been very quiet i expected him be quite vocal when he came back from OZ.

Glad to see France increased vaccinations my cousin and his girlfriend are in thier 30s and all her family live in France.
My aunt can't wait to visit as misses grandkids who knows when that will be.
France was next destination to take the kids but guess be a few years.
Hopefully without macron in charge.

I'll be traveling and staying outside of Europe this summer.

Sad not to be able to pop and visit my sister and old friends when she's in France though - she's living between Saudi and the South of France at the minute and is currently in France for a short visit to sort out some paperwork. Cheap flight and a weekend catch up would have been lovely.

Annoyingly a friend was teasing me that the place I want to get to, where my other home is, is open to him and he's flying there from Helsinki as we speak. I have flights booked for July and am optimistic I should be able to use them. Visiting my second home before I end up losing it because I haven't been there to sort out legal issues. Bizarrely, despite being a poor country, the vaccination in the region I stay in is doing really well on the vaccine programme and offering free it to expats as well as nationals age by age. Cashing in on stupidly expensive covid tests though as people need one to fly out of the country.

@Wakeupin2022

not

Is it you that's based in Denmark?

What do you think will happen in Denmark with J&J?

It's clear there are most likely similar issues to AZ - same type of vaccine.

Do you think the same steps will be taken? Is AZ approved for us in Denmark at this time?

It's me and one other poster in Denmark.

They haven't announced anything with J&J yet, first shipments are due at the end of this week I think - but still in very small quantities at this point.

AZ still on pause totally at this point, but there'll be a decision this week. However they always planned to have it on pause this long, because they could do so without any of the stock expiring and wanted to investigate for as long as possible. It's also still a very small portion of the vaccine supply here - we have far, far more Pfizer.

Now, the health authorities have already said that the decision to suspend it is because we can - we don't have a huge amount anyway, and there's no third wave here - it's very under control with between 0-3 deaths a day for the last couple of months. They've said quite bluntly if the situation was worse they would still be using it in some capacity.

This is going to make it interesting with the J&J vaccine, because it's by far our biggest order.

We've ordered (for a population of ~5.8m, and the figures are a 'complete' vaccination, so 4.6m Pfizer technically means 9.2m doses) :

8.2m J&J
4.6m Pfizer
3.4m CureVac
3m Moderna
1.9m AZ
1.9m Sanofi (if it ever works...)

So it won't be like with AZ where we can say "It's not a big part of our vaccination strategy so we don't need to take the risk..." unless Pfizer and Moderna can provide enough in 2nd quarter to complete our vaccinations, which it seems they nearly can. By the numbers above you can see that we've ordered enough to vaccinate the entire population over 3 times.

Everyone willing should be able to get vaccinated by mid-July (fully vaccinated) under the current projection - they say if AZ is completely ruled out it will shift that by 1 to 2 weeks.

On a brighter note, they're aiming to vaccinate 100,000 people today, which would the rough equivalent of the UK vaccinating nearly 1m in a day (it really helps with the maths when one country is a convenient roughly 10x the size in population of the other.)

We've been at the top of the charts for EU countries vaccinating until now, but it's pleasing the see Spain, Germany etc. have caught up dramatically in the past week.

Interesting to read all that NLT, thanks and good luck.

Thats really good news and info thanks @NewLevelsOfTiredness

Thank you for update really interesting.
Also highlights not all 27 member states are the same in terms of levels if infection and what they ordered
I can see the appeal in one shot vaccine in terms of time saving and probably cheaper than pfizer or Moderna.
It's difficult when placing orders on backing the right horse so to speak it became a vaccine race.
Its still a spectacular achievement in history for scientists all over the world to produce a vaccine for a corona virus manufacture and deliver in such a short time frame.
Its been huge efforts on a international level which I feel is a great shame the the EU want to go in attack mode and block other countries from getting thier orders claiming if its made in the block then its theirs.
They don't seem to grasp the complexity of vaccines production.

Theres no doubt the UK placed majority of their eggs in Oxford AZ basket.
Itsa huge feat for British science but also home grown production so jobs and security we have some supply as we can't rely on Europe to send vaccines.

There is one massive flaw in the EU procurement ordering that the commission refuse to acknowledge.
Perhaps he can be a bit annoying the Austrian leader but issue is his country and few others in Europe ordered predominantly AZ or Sanofi.
So they are very short as they don't have pfizer or moderna stocks to fall back on like other members states.
Another flaw that almost pushes some desperate countries in to ordering from Russia or China

Is each member state can only upscale orders with vaccine producers the EU have ordered from once original orders to eu are completed.
So Austria can't order pfizer now its too late to ammend thier order

They can only deal with vaccine producers the EU haven't ordered from.

I thought Austria Denmark and one other met up with Israel to buy overstock of pfizer from Israel.

I loved Denmark when I visited and would love to take my kids there one day.

I don't know how much uk ordered of j and j or when we get it
I think next big 2 will be norovax and valneva as they will be manufactured in UK so we have some vaccine security and unlike other member states tied into EU order we can up our orders as we need it.
The eu country's struggling really need automy to increase orders if not much Az and no Sanofi or curevac yet.

NewLevels - will they pass them onto Covax then? Seems awful if they just waste them when other countries could use.

@3asAbird
There is one massive flaw in the EU procurement ordering that the commission refuse to acknowledge.
Perhaps he can be a bit annoying the Austrian leader but issue is his country and few others in Europe ordered predominantly AZ or Sanofi.
So they are very short as they don't have pfizer or moderna stocks to fall back on like other members states.

This is correct, and of course it was easier for the wealthier countries in Northern and Western Europe to go big on the more expensive vaccines (as well as the cost we have the infrastructure to store it at the extreme temperatures etc.)

It's also why some members are looking to Sputnik, I guess, since it wasn't one of the procurement deal vaccines. But individual member countries doing that is a complete non-story as far as 'EU Drama' goes - they've always been allowed to, simple as that (not that you've posted anything to the contrary, but some seem to think it's a big deal.)

Our PM announced today that Denmark would not order Sputnik unless it passes through as thorough an EMA evaluation as the other vaccines have.

I thought Austria Denmark and one other met up with Israel to buy overstock of pfizer from Israel.

I'll be honest, nobody quite knows what was achieved from the Israel visit. Mette Frederiksen is pretty sharp and I'm sure there was a gameplan - when Israel are finished vaccinating maybe we'll find out.

One thing you have to remember, and I think it's an important point on the value of the EU. The UK, France, Germany and then to an extent Spain and Italy - are bigger countries with a bigger clout internationally. It's quite possible the four EU countries listed could have struck good deals themselves. Denmark looked into individual deals and found that a country this size simply could not buy as many vaccines as they could get as part of the EU procurement deal. We just didn't have the individual buying power.

Another point, I guess, is that the EU is... convenient for us, and a lot of the countries. I think the average Dane will always feel more 'Scandinavian' or 'Nordic' than European. But the value of the bloc is evident. But when VDL says something I disagree with, I feel as represented by her as... well... a British person would have done before Brexit.

Likewise with Macron...he's a head of state of another country in the bloc. If you try and think back to pre-2016, pre referendum, you would never take something that the head of France, or Italy, or whatever member, said, and feel like it represented 'the EU' - the very idea seems absurd right? Nothing Tony Blair, David Cameron etc. was every considered to represent 'the EU' - so how on earth can Macron or Merkel do so? So it chafes a little that there's been so much posting along the lines of "The EU is shite because Macron said..." - it's just a nonsense.

That all said, I do look forward to VDL being replaced with someone hopefully a little more diplomatic. Even her predecessor has hinted that she should pipe down a bit....

Sorry 3asABird - most of that wasn't aimed at you but a little airing of frustrations in general. I'm glad you like Denmark, and I hope your kids get to go to Tivoli or Legoland one day. Perhaps a little surprising to hear it, but I'm actually an Englishman who has simply lived in Denmark for many years. All my extended family still live in the UK so I am still passionate about it. I haven't visited since 2018 and although I'm very seldom homesick it's a surprisingly painful thorn that I can't visit at the moment.

@TheHoneyBadger

Well, they won't say until a decision is made, but I'm guessing they'd go to other EU members that can use them (it seems, at the moment, that there's thankfully enough acceptance of AZ still among the EU population that the stock can be used.)

Personally, I'd want them to go to Covax.

What is Denmark's position with the EU? I had it in my head that they were part of the trading agreement and paid in etc but weren't full members? Or am I getting mixed up with another scandi fishing nation? Maybe Norway?

I think when Merkel or Macron speak it is maybe taken as an 'EU' issue in recognition of the fact they do have a much bigger voice and sway than smaller countries in the EU and it does reflect on the EU and, for me at least, makes me feel for the smaller countries caught up in policies and (lack of) diplomacy strategies etc of those bigger nations and their influence over, and representation of, the EU. France and Germany have a lot of 'clout' and are much more on the world stage than eg. Bulgaria.

Merkel in particular is obviously hugely identified with the EU project so she very much seems like a big 'face' of the EU. Itms.

Isn’t Denmark’s Krone currency pegged to the Euro? Wasn’t it always pegged to the German currency?

@TheHoneyBadger

What is Denmark's position with the EU? I had it in my head that they were part of the trading agreement and paid in etc but weren't full members? Or am I getting mixed up with another scandi fishing nation? Maybe Norway?

I think when Merkel or Macron speak it is maybe taken as an 'EU' issue in recognition of the fact they do have a much bigger voice and sway than smaller countries in the EU and it does reflect on the EU and, for me at least, makes me feel for the smaller countries caught up in policies and (lack of) diplomacy strategies etc of those bigger nations and their influence over, and representation of, the EU. France and Germany have a lot of 'clout' and are much more on the world stage than eg. Bulgaria.

Merkel in particular is obviously hugely identified with the EU project so she very much seems like a big 'face' of the EU. Itms.

It's Norway you're thinking of, although they're part of the procurement deal :) Denmark and Sweden are both full EU members but don't use the Euro. Finland is also a member but not truly Scandinavian. Though it's on the Scandinavian peninsula and especially along the shared border has close cultural ties with Sweden, apparently.

I'll concede that Merkel does seem to go all in on the EU and so it's hard to mentally disassociate her from it.

But the UK was just as big a player internationally (bigger probably) and there certainly never a feeling that they represented the EU when they were still a member - so why would it be different with Macron?

But there's nothing to feel sorry for us about - the ONLY annoyance is when people outside the EU think the lines are blurry between country and union. Germany and France might be big players but they can't force EU policy alone (nor do they agree all the time anyway, any idea that they're joined in policy is very misguided.) The EU serves a purpose, has a lot of problems, but is useful and doesn't define us so it's worth having around.

And yeah, political leaders are idiots, fairly often. Macron is. Boris is (in my opinion), Mette Frederiksen is canny and has done well with the virus situation but I think a couple of her policies are vile. I honestly think any one of the three would act just as terribly as VDL has if they saw it as necessary.

@Baileysforchristmas

Isn’t Denmark’s Krone currency pegged to the Euro? Wasn’t it always pegged to the German currency?

Semi-pegged to the Euro - it floats within a range of 2.25%.

It was forcibly pegged to the Deutschmark when Denmark was occupied in the second world war. Funnily enough Denmark chose not to keep it pegged to the currency of their former occupiers after that.

Is this incorrect then?

The Danish krone EURDKK, -0.01% USDDKK, +0.30% has been pegged since 1982, first to the German Deutsche Mark, and then to the euro from 1999. That makes it the longest running current fixed-exchange regime in Europe. “It's become the cornerstone of Danish economic policy.

@Baileysforchristmas

Is this incorrect then?

The Danish krone EURDKK, -0.01% USDDKK, +0.30% has been pegged since 1982, first to the German Deutsche Mark, and then to the euro from 1999. That makes it the longest running current fixed-exchange regime in Europe. “It's become the cornerstone of Danish economic policy.

In the sense that Denmark was one of the eight countries that signed up to the EMS in 1979, and in 1982 the DM became the de-facto currency of it. Essentially pegging to the Euro before it existed. Ironically when the Euro came into play and the EMSII replaced the EMS the DKK was less pegged than it had been previously.

The last referendum was in 2000, but I think the sense of maintaining the cultural identity of the DKK would probably still win today.

Oh it says here it was to help the economy at the time

Introduced in 1982 to help stabilize a struggling Danish economy, the fixed-exchange scheme continues to enjoy enormous broad backing from politicians, the public and financial institutions. It’s now ingrained into the culture, and Danes rarely question whether it’s a good idea.

For one thing, the eurozone is Denmark’s largest trading partner, and the fixed exchange rate keeps Danish companies competitive and predictable within that market. The krone is pegged to trade within a 2.25% band of 7.46038 krone to the euro.

@Baileysforchristmas

Oh it says here it was to help the economy at the time

Introduced in 1982 to help stabilize a struggling Danish economy, the fixed-exchange scheme continues to enjoy enormous broad backing from politicians, the public and financial institutions. It’s now ingrained into the culture, and Danes rarely question whether it’s a good idea.

For one thing, the eurozone is Denmark’s largest trading partner, and the fixed exchange rate keeps Danish companies competitive and predictable within that market. The krone is pegged to trade within a 2.25% band of 7.46038 krone to the euro.

It's a bit roundabout but the EMS thing hadn't worked so well, and Denmark's economy was suffering in the three years prior to it pegging to the DM in 1982.

The system was there in 1979, it just made sense to peg it to the strongest economy when the original iteration didn't work out.

I wouldn't say Danes don't question it, but they're far more concerned about the negative effects of the weaker economies in the Eurozone than they are about the dominance of the stronger economies, if that makes sense?

I think you're sourcing www.marketwatch.com/story/the-game-of-krones-inside-denmarks-battle-to-defend-its-35-year-old-currency-peg-2017-12-08#:~:text=The%20Danish%20krone%20EURDKK%2C%20%2D0.01,cornerstone%20of%20Danish%20economic%20policy. which quotes the EU as the biggest trading partner. Back then the UK was still in the UK, and one of the very major exports was Danish Bacon... to the UK. I wonder if you remove that if the EU is still the biggest trading partner? I honestly don't know.

The UK was still in the EU I mean... it's getting late here, sorry!

@NewLevelsOfTiredness thanks for the explanation 😊

I think despite being a big player internationally uk was always seen as not very eu. Maybe the currency but more likely the separatist attitude uk tends to exude.

I agree macron is pushing it but Germany is, rightly or wrongly, often seen as a driver of the eu project. I know France and Germany have different ideas and German friends were hoping we’d stay in because uk and Germany together had a better chance of changing things for the better and tempering France’s sway according to them.

I presume, but don’t understand, that the uk leaving changes power dynamics as well as the economic balance. I also wonder what happens when merkel withdraws from political life.