Astrazeneca: EU demands Britain's vaccine doses

[-:Undertaker:-]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55822602

Astrazeneca: EU demands Britain's vaccine doses

European Union's poor vaccine response facing mounting criticism as Britain surges ahead and Madrid runs out of vaccines

The EU has urged pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca to supply it with more doses of its Covid-19 vaccine from UK plants, amid a row over shortages.

The company has infuriated the bloc by saying it can deliver only a fraction of the doses it promised for the first quarter of the year.


It blames production issues at European plants, but the EU says doses made elsewhere should make up the shortfall.


The EU has been criticised for the slow rollout of its vaccinations.

The EU really is beyond belief. It doesn't really matter whether they reject the logic or not. The British government ordered the AstraZeneca vaccine first. https://t.co/vPwdmYA66s

— John Duffield (@jfwduffield) January 27, 2021

EU now rejecting the principle of queuing, the cornerstone of British identity. This will not go well. https://t.co/d05VmNPmIH

— Ian Leslie (@mrianleslie) January 27, 2021

The EU is trying to lay the ground for stealing our vaccines. Because they forgot to check if anyone else had bought and paid for goods ahead of them. If they do try and block export don't you dare ever write that this is a rules-based organisation again. https://t.co/Z7Yn3edKjH

— Matt Kilcoyne (@MRJKilcoyne) January 27, 2021

Worth remembering, for all the anger of EU officials over the possibility of not receiving as much AstraZeneca vaccine as anticipated, that it hasn’t even been licensed by the EMA yet.

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) January 27, 2021

Hahaha.

My friend from London messaged earlier, his mum was a big middle-class lefty Remainer and even she tonight said "F*** them".

Take a good hard look at that graph difference between Britain and the EU. Had we stayed in, that is where we would be right now with vaccines.

And the SNP think that is a model for an independent Scotland to follow. @Mikey;

[-:Undertaker:-]

Sorry, I should have said "independent" Scotland in my post just because Scotland would be in the EU and thus would still waiting on the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to approve the vaccine for use in Scotland and across the EU. Britain's regulatory medicines agency (MHRA) approved the vaccine over a month ago.

Madrid just suspended all vaccinations for next two weeks. No vaccine doses left. This as number of new deaths accelerates

— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) January 27, 2021

This is what happens when you contract governance out to unaccountable and alien organisations. You get bad governance with zero accountability.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Row continuing to escalate:

'The best advert for Brexit': German media savages the EU for its vaccine shambles https://t.co/7rXPBtjPI7 pic.twitter.com/Uo3DYocH64

— Mail+ (@DailyMailUK) January 27, 2021

Over 7.4m in 🇬🇧 have had first jab, just under 500,000 their 2nd. That’s 11% of population versus >2% Germany, <2% France.

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) January 28, 2021

Oh you’d be treating it as a competition alright if Germany, France et al were vaccinating millions more than 🇬🇧. You wouldn’t be able to hide your delight, dissing 🇬🇧 and bigging up the EU. Your grief at 🇬🇧 doing well re Vax is clearly inconsolable. And don’t swear. Blocked. https://t.co/mT3hZt6DWG

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) January 28, 2021

[-:Undertaker:-]

Here we go, the real face of the EU.

HM Government now needs to override the Protocol with emergency legislation.

Unbelievable – a hard border, imposed by the EU, *one month* into the treaty, after it spent four years insisting that was unthinkable, to stop the UK getting vaccines it paid for, because of the Commission's shite handling of procurement. They have lost the plot. https://t.co/e0EiPFb0ZV

— Sam Bowman (@s8mb) January 29, 2021

It took 29 days for the EU to erode the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Let it never be suggested again that the EU is the 'good faith' actor. Let's not pretend it's the party that cares about relations between NI and the Republic. Or that it values contracts, law or institutions. https://t.co/s4jVTtW8yL

— Kate Andrews (@KateAndrs) January 29, 2021

[-:Undertaker:-]

Countless Remainers on Twitter saying they've changed their minds after this.

The EU has now pulled the Article 16 after the British and Irish governments said what the hell are you doing. Even funnier, not only did the EC fail to notify Her Majesty's Government, but didn't even bother consulting the Republic of Ireland. It took only 29 days post-FTA for the EU to try to impose a hard border in Ireland.

One idea being floated by Brexiteers now, is that the British government generously commit to vaccinating the 5 million citizens of the Irish Republic.

After four years of lecturing Britain that it could never countenance anything that might lead to a hard border in Ireland, the European Union, in a desperate response to its own vaccine incompetence, introduces a hard border. Then thinks better of it.

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) January 30, 2021

For all the blather about ‘putting Ireland first’ during the Brexit negotiations, the EU never gave a shit about Ireland. You would have thought the EU inflicting crippling austerity on it in 2010 might have tipped more of the commentariat off. https://t.co/k2suSVq6m7

— Tom Slater (@Tom_Slater_) January 29, 2021

The EU's decision on the Irish border tonight is right up there with the most bizarre I have ever seen in politics. For years, they have told us there must never, EVER, be a border on the island of Ireland. And they just imposed one, without consultation.

— tom bradby (@tombradby) January 29, 2021

I spent weeks listening to EU types moaning about international law being broken in a ‘limited and specific way’ without it ever being broken. Tonight the EU has breached it in a very certain way by not bothering to notify the UK about triggering Article 16 of the NI Protocol.

— Joe Barnes (@Barnes_Joe) January 29, 2021

I voted Remain. I came to terms with the Brexit vote. I even came to believe that Brexit was an opportunity. But I never completely disavowed my decision in 2016. I now do, wholeheartedly. The Brexit side has been proven unequivocally right and just in the past week.

— Elliot Keck (@ElliotKeck) January 29, 2021

Boris gets off the phone to Ursula von der Leyen and moments later the EU withdraw Article 16. 😏

— Lee Harris (@addicted2newz) January 29, 2021

One reason why all of this matters is that it is the first big test since the Brexit Wars - for the Brits to compare themselves with the EU, and for the EU to compare themselves with the Brits. And, so far, the EU is failing spectacularly.

— Matt Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) January 29, 2021

an independent UK put in place more contracts for vaccines per capita and much earlier than the EU - and rather than accept the commercial and political reality, the EU is now shouting foul play. It is not the best look for the EU.

— Robert Peston (@Peston) January 29, 2021

[Inseriousity.]

I've been following this story ever since the AstraZeneca CEO's bombshell interview. Totally dropping uncomfortable truths - or AstraZeneca's version of it at least - throughout the whole interview and in this rather casual, straightforward way you don't usually see in interviews (although that may just be a translation thing). I don't have any legal expertise but seems like they have a point with the whole "Best Reasonable Effort" clause once the text was released yesterday.

I remember back when vaccines first started to be administered. I thought at the time that it's a perfect example as to why I voted Brexit. Divergence not for the sake of it or as a race to the bottom but there may be some occasions where working independently is better than uniting. I had no idea at the time however that the Commission would make such a complete mess of things and dig themselves into an even bigger hole!