I mean, they don't have a leg to stand on, France that is. The UK supply chain started yield infrastructure build out in q1 2020 as paid for exclusively by the UK at the behest of the Jenner institute.
French politics is transference and blame to deflect blame from the leadership. Currently they promised 10m by end of march in total vaccinated. But in seeing that wouldn't be possible they jumped at the chance to stop issuing it so they can lean on that excuse
From what I understand, the EU has done poorly in the both in the negotiations and actually provisioning vaccines and it's not strictly an issue with leadership in any particular country. Beyond delegating their responsibility of course.
To be fair, the EU ordered around four doses per resident (incl. minors) already in January. With deliveries through, if I remember well, June to July to vaccinate everyone. And the EU explicitly called out the distribution and vaccination efforts in the member states to be the biggest challenge. And due to the nature of the EU, these were the sole responsibility of the member states.
The EU did screw up in terms of communication and coordination. The former let to public and media pressure to order more, which negatively impacted short term availability, and the latter let to delays of the vaccination campaigns. The only way the EU could have improved that, so, would have been to serve as a clearing house coordinating exact delivery dates for members based on actual vaccination plans. without those plans, there is nothing the EU could have done. And at least Germany, the biggest member state, doesn't have a true plan. As shown when our government implemented a vaccination summit in Feb of 2021.
They will never accept any culpability. I have elderly family living in France and they have said that medical professionals they have interacted with are livid with how their Govenment and the EU have handled this. The blame lies squarely at the EU's feet.
This is not "whataboutism", it's simply prompted by your "classic EU attitude: Was there a single resignation or admission of guilt from the UK goverment for one of worst responses to COVID19?
You can't really just precede a whataboutism with 'This is not "whataboutism"'. I agree Bojo's response has been shambolic but we are talking about the EU here.
Nearly all of the response to the pandemic from the Johnson Govenment has been shambolic, except for the vaccine roll-out, which is the NHS at it's best.
Very important to note that - the vaccine rollout has been handled by the NHS mainly and NOT the govt directly. One of the few things that has been handled properly.
what should they have done differently? they signed a contract and assumed the other party will honor it. the other party chose to not honor it, which was a big gamble. we'll see how that will work out for them in the long term, now that they irritated most EU countries.
they did the same with pfizer and that seems to work.
US is blocking exports, "americans first". EU didn't do that but now they have to since the supplier doesn't care about contracts.
suddenly HN is keen on defending big pharma. if this happened in the US I can't even imagine the outcry.
Not wasted 3 months trying to save a couple of bucks and gathering mpre political power for the EU, and then expect the vaccines they ordered to be ready at the same time as those of countries who ordered right away.
We now know from them failing to redact the contracts properly that the EU were lying and AZ wasn't breaching anything. It's simple, you order last, you get delivered to last.
Agree on the first part, disagree on the second one. One of the largest reasons for the reduced deliveries is, IMHO, the additional orders the EU was pressured into by the public and media. Because manufacturers, incl. Biontech/Pfizer, had to increase capacities which let to short term capacity reductions as they closed down factories and rebuild them.
Yeah, you're probably right. I forget that supply-chain logistics is a bit different to ordering on Amazon. It only really matters what it says in the contract and if it doesn't say anything about when the EU gets its vaccines, then surely it is up to AZ when they deliver?
Yep, but usually exact delivery dtaes are part of the individual purchase rders. Penalties and so on are part of the contract so. And there the EU - AZ contract is so vague, no company would buy anything else than office supplies with similar terms. One example is "best-effort", what ever that means. And that AZ is redeemed of any consequences for late deliveries if the EU ordered more than initially contracted and AZ has to increase capacities for these orders. And that seems to be exactly what happened.
And with AZ being, I could imagine, pretty pissed at the EU (and memeber states) right now, I think that doesn't really help neither.
Literally everything possible somehow. They tried to haggle a price and as a result they are in the back of the queue. The EU is unaccountable and the member states are paying for their lies. (France and Italy also have a lot of the blame)
No, because the contracts are under different jurisdictions of law.
Essentially whether the UK contract has been fulfilled is pretty black and white where the EU one is significantly less so.
See below:
> "The level of specificity is partially due to the legal systems they're based on. The U.K. contract is written in English law, which will judge whether both parties delivered the goods based on the exact wording of the contract. The EU contract is written in Belgian law, which focuses on whether both parties tried their best to deliver the goods and acted in good faith.
It's these extra details that give the U.K. more leverage to ensure its contract is delivered effectively. While both contracts say all parties will make their “best reasonable effort” to deliver the vaccine, the U.K. government is clearer in asserting its oversight of the agreement.
This core difference, according to a lawyer familiar with the development of the U.K. text, can be chalked up to the fact that the contract sealed with London was written by people with significant experience of purchasing agreements, specifically drug-buying deals. The European Commission’s contract, by contrast, shows a lack of commercial common sense, in the lawyer’s view.
The starkest example of this difference is a clause in the U.K. contract stating that if any party tries to force or persuade AstraZeneca or its subcontractors to do anything that could hold up the supply of the vaccine doses, the government may terminate the deal and invoke what appear to be punishment clauses — although these are largely redacted.
"[1]
One minute they're suspending use of AstraZeneca, the next they're complaining they aren't getting enough deliveries of the vaccine they don't want to use.
The EU was super happy on the negociations on the vaccine prices with AstraZeneca. They claimed that the grouped buy was a major reason why they were able to get such a cheap price (Around $2.15 / dose). The US and UK pays around $3 to $4 / dose.
To compare, South Africa seems to be paying $5.25 to AstraZeneca. Pfizer vaccine costs $14.70/dose and Moderna $18. You can see why the EU is so dependent on AstraZeneca. It's all about injecting the cheapest vaccine as fast as possible.
Basically, the EU got a super heavy discount on the vaccine price. This also mean that they are last on the line for deliveries. In times of hardship, any sensible business will satisfy clients who pay a significant premium for their product before delivering the noisy client that negociates super harshly and can't stop complaining about your product.
Ursula von der Leyen needs to look herself in the mirror for the supposed "vaccine delivery issues". She willingly looked for the cheapest provider. When you imperatively need a product to be delivered and to work, you pay a premium for it, you don't look to reduce your costs as much as possible.
> The suggestion we sell to other countries to make more money is not right because we make no profit everywhere.That's the approach we took and we agreed on that. That’s the agreement we have with Oxford University. It's actually even written in a contract we have with Oxford University: that we will be at no profit. We have slightly different prices from one geographic to the other because the cost of goods may be different. We have a supply chain in Brazil, we have another one in Latin America, another one in South Asia. We have one in Japan. Of course, you know, local costs are different. So you've got slight variations, but more or less, it's about three to four dollars, more or less everywhere.
The core difference for the EU contract was that the EU wouldn't accept any/as-much liability for any harm caused by the vaccine (compared with UK/USA). Not sure the source of this claim.
They did still pay 370M eur to them upfront + 660M eur in grants for R&D through Horizon 2020. 1B eur client can afford to be a bit noisy.
All in all AZ vaccine is not that significant for the EU anyway - so far the administered doses were about 80% Pfizer. And if you look at the at-risk population (65+) it's probably even higher
I don't know how important it was in big scheme of things, but saving money on the dose cost was the silliest thing I've ever heard. I've spent more money on tortilla chips this week than they saved on the doses. I would gladly pay $100/dose out of pocket for a vaccine at this point. I'm not sure if the dose cost made any difference in how fast the vaccines got made, but any time spent trying to get the cost down below the US and UK rates was wasted.
I bet Astrazeneca/Oxford is regretting offering to produce at cost due to the level of grief and politicking coming from EU capitals and the EU commission.
it just means they don't make a profit, officially, right? but they get paid to cover everything: workforce, R&D, opening extra plants, bonuses for executives, etc. I'm sure it's practically no different. just accounting magic. just the fact that they get paid to ramp up production is enough win. they'll leverage this to make profit later.
I just mean that if you name is going to get dragged through the mud you can forgive the feeling that maybe they should a profit out of it. All of their competitors are recording record profits from vaccine sales.
Their only silver lining is they have sold a $250 million USD stake in Moderna for $1 billion this month.
EU bureaucrats in disbelief that words on paper mean little in exigent times.
This is one of the big problems with the EU when it comes to geopolitical issues and security. Way too dependent on diplomacy and then always get surprised when other entities simply break the rules. I guess maybe the lack of foresight is because they are used to lording it over the EU member states (with a couple of exceptions) and then expect non-EU states to be equally complacent.
Instead of wasting time negotiating on price, they should have built manufacturing capacity within EU borders.
The EU followed a multi source strategy, the additional production capacity was only needed when the EU was kind of forced to order more. Even if that wasn't really needed, because more =|= faster, and faster was the real issue.
The initial EU plan was to order more than needed, and share these doses with poorer countries outside the EU. Solid plan, badly communicated with badly negotiated contracts and a total lack of coordination and planning on behalf of the member states. As a result, we got the mess we have now.
The EU has paid AstraZeneca to build manufacturing capacity within EU borders, but a big part of that capacity is used to supply the UK. AstraZeneca has also quite smartly been extremely slow to file the necessary paperwork to make those plants EU compliant so that even with export controls, the capacity of those plants cannot be used by Europe.
Edit: The comment originally claimed that EU made vaccines were exported to the USA, this is actually not the case
Why is that? And why doesn’t the E.U. send police or military to stop shipments from leaving the E.U. if they are in violation of contractual obligations or law?
But also, as E.U. member states are suspending the AstraZeneca vaccine why is it even a problem that the shipments are leaving the E.U.?
I find the response and handling of the entire situation by the E.U. to be a bit perplexing.
They did. They blocked shipments from a factory in Italy. But this is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons:
1. No actual contract violation appears to be occurring. See my other comments.
2. Supply chains for vaccines are long and complex. The EU risks retaliation by other countries that block supplies to them in return.
3. EU has publicly proclaimed many times it hates the idea of "vaccine nationalism" as it calls it, by which it means countries blocking exports of things. Then they did it, it makes them hypocritical.
4. When governments intervene in third party contracts it makes that part of the world less safe to do business. The company is out of pocket and left to pick up the pieces with the customers. Companies hate that and it's ultimately companies, in a capitalist economy, who do the bulk of the work in society. So making it hard for them to do that means you're less likely to have such companies next time around.
Indeed EU already has a problem in the sense that most vaccines are produced by companies outside its borders, even if some factories are within it.
As for why they are suspending the vaccine whilst also demanding more of it, the suspensions appear to be political? AZ have claimed that the rate of blood clotting issues is actually lower in the vaccinated population than the average population, i.e. vaccines are not causing those issues, it's just coincidence. I don't really know how to interpret this claim - would that imply the vaccine is actually suppressing blood clotting problems? But so far AZ have a track record of making correct claims, and the EU does not, so I am inclined to believe them if that's what the stats say (they don't try to explain the lower incidence rates amongst vaccinated populations, just note that it exists).
Basically by doing so the EU would take Ireland "hostage" over its commercial war with the UK, and it's something the Irish people took very badly.
Concerning the suspension, we just don't have enough info. The EU medical authority is due to talk officially about it next Thursday, but if every EU country is suspending it in advance, I think it will be officially banned/suspended
>And why doesn’t the E.U. send police or military to stop shipments from leaving the E.U. if they are in violation of contractual obligations or law?
Well, they are, and that is when you see the UK media accusing EU of 'vaccine nationalism', all the while Europe being one of the major exporter of vaccines, while UK & USA export zero.
> But also, as E.U. member states are suspending the AstraZeneca vaccine why is it even a problem that the shipments are leaving the E.U.?
The safety of the vaccine is under examination & completely unrelated to the procurement issues. Europe has not cancelled the order & still expects it to be fulfilled if the vaccine is deemed safe after the review process is done
> I find the response and handling of the entire situation by the E.U. to be a bit perplexing.
It's quite perplexing because we're all reading about it from the english speaking media who are a bit biased about it to say the least
European AstraZeneca supply is not being shipped to the USA. The FDA will not approve AZ until the ongoing local phase III trial is complete. In the meantime, the U.S. export restrictions still apply to American manufactured AZ doses:
Although EU/France keeps claiming AZ are breaking the rules, they have produced no evidence this is true. Last time they tried to claim this they released a heavily redacted PDF of the contract signed with AZ but the redacting was botched, so people could see the hidden text. It showed AZ were correct about the contract (what a surprise) and the EU were lying about it. Since then they keep claiming there is some sort of contract violation but details of this violation are never elaborated on, nor is there any court case about it.
I was told Brexit would crash the British economy. And yet now it's the EU begging the UK for a vaccine, the rate of GBP/USD is nearly at a 5 year high, and the UK has made serious progress vaccinating its population. Maybe the leavers were onto something?
Except goods exports are down 40%, large chunks of finance and services are being moved to Amsterdam and other EU capitals, and Northern Ireland is having trouble stocking its supermarket shelves while unionist paramilitary groups are renouncing the Good Friday Agreement.
The developing story is that Brexit is a slow moving disaster for trade, services, and the stability in Northern Ireland. All of this was predicted.
You're thinking of a few weeks in January. By February cross-border traffic was nearly back to normal (about 90% of similar traffic a year earlier but that's with lockdown, which surely reduces trade).
large chunks of finance and services are being moved to Amsterdam
No, only trading of EU shares which isn't a big market for London to begin with. London has a huge finance ecosystem with many components that have nothing to do with the EU at all.
Northern Ireland is having trouble stocking its supermarket shelves
That cuts both ways. There have also been problems with supermarket shelves in Europe:
These problems are being resolved over time. One issue is that the EU has pulled out all the stops to make exports from the UK as painful as possible via various forms of malicious rule-enforcement. The UK has not retaliated in kind and in fact is waiving the rules for a while to let EU exporters learn the ropes.
Examples of "malicious rule enforcement" are goods being rejected at the border due to a spelling error in the Latin name of a fish, sandwiches being confiscated from truck drivers, etc. The EU is essentially a protectionist bloc and has got very good at erecting trade barriers through complex certification and tax rules.
There are no technical reasons for most of these new requirements. UK standards and enforcement have not changed from before. However EU has no interest in recognising the reality on the ground, they are interested in finding ways to incentivise membership and empower the Commission. We now see what other all other non-European countries have to pointlessly suffer through when trying to trade with the UK previously - not pleasant.
One thing to bear in mind is that whilst the EU is increasing friction with UK/EU trade, it is now possible to reduce friction with other parts of the world. Already there has been a mini trade deal with the USA such that, for example, 25% tariffs on Scottish whisky are being dropped. So trade gets harder with Europe but is getting easier with other parts of the world.
As for peace in Northern Ireland, it wasn't the UK that just weeks ago tried to impose a hard border there, was it? So much for the EU being dedicated to peace in NI. They give fine words but it lasted less than a month before they violated all those agreements and had to be forced to back down by a massive rebellion.
That supermarket article you are talking about specifically talks about a "British" goods supermarket abroad, which is to be expected, frankly. Regular supermarkets are fine?
I believe NI's problems are specifically UK based, general goods supermarkets, which are the most common, having issues stocking shelves (Sainsbury's had to get items from SPAR, because SPAR are EU based and thus have the infrastructure/customs stuff sorted out).
I talked to a company running a pan-EU FBA business. And they don't have any ustoms issues with Brexit. The way they solved it was to consolidate shipments to fixed dates /days, instead of peacemeal as was done before. And, more importantly, they work with a specialized customs agent and wait for customs clearance before sending the shipment.
That increases inventory in transit and lead times, but being stuck at the border for an unpredictable amount of time does that as well. Not to mention the costs for having the trucks waiting there, usually somewhere between 150 and 250/300 Euros per day. I mean, it's not that companies didn't know what happens and prepare upfront.
> A supermarket in Brussels specialising in British treats
A supermarket purely dependent on British treats... I can attest that all other supermarkets are fully stocked and haven't noticed the slightest of Brexit.
Its is a significant reduction both from the previous month and compared the previous year, so there is no sugar coating the figures by appealing to covid. While traffic is back up its not clear whether the same volume of goods is in transit on those lorries (most likely empty or partially loaded lorries returning to the EU). Its becoming increasingly clear that many small and medium sized export businesses are no longer viable, esp in food and agriculture.
Comparing general supermarkets supplies to specialty retailers serving expat communities is a joke.
Bravado about how great London is at finance doesn't dismiss that Amsterdam trading volumes have tripled and London's trading volumes have halved.
Whining about how unfair and malicious the EU is is just the reality of how the EU treats all third party countries. Being outside the club is a bit miserable.
Yes, the NHS has done a very good job at administering the vaccine programme.
But delivery of goods on agreed terms is "begging" now? And your choice of GBP/USD window is rather convenient, as is the choice of currency. Have a peek at GBP/EUR over 10 years.
As for the British economy, we're only 3.5 months in to trading on something approaching the new terms and the UK is already choking on the 'oven ready' Withdrawla Agreement and is flatly refusing to implement parts of it because it simply can't cope or perhaps never planned to act in good faith in the first place. We will see how this plays out with future trade negotiations -- the world is watching.
So the proximate issue appears to be lack of government approval for a new factory in the Netherlands. The contract issue has been done to death: the contracts the EU signed talk about best efforts. They don't actually seem to contain any penalties for "late" delivery.
AZ must surely see the EU as a colossal pain in the rear by now. If EU want to be treated as higher priority they're doing it all wrong because repeatedly abusing and pissing off the people who can make your vaccine is not a smart move. So far we have seen:
• EU leaders haggled for months over cost and didn't sign early contracts, despite AZ producing it not-for-profit.
• EU publicly claimed AZ were in violation of contract. AZ denied it. Then the Commission released the contract redacted, but they redacted it incorrectly which let people see the EU was lying and AZ was telling the truth.
• EU regulators reached same decision as UK regulators but much slower. At one point when asked why they still hadn't approved it, their answer was something like "AZ didn't contact us yet". Apparently proactively reaching out was not imaginable.
• Multiple EU leaders then claimed the vaccine didn't work, which turned out to be another lie.
• Then they briefly attempted to violate the supposedly sacrosanct and inviolable Northern Ireland protocol to stop AZ vaccine being exported from the EU (which didn't have any) to the UK (which had lots). Beyond making no sense at all this also showed the EU had been lying again for years during the Brexit negotiations, as they repeatedly claimed to be totally committed to NI peace process and would never accept anything that could lead to a border. All tossed out the window just weeks after the UK/EU transition period ended.
• EU repeatedly claimed to hate vaccine nationalism and find it totally unacceptable. Then they blocked export of AZ vaccine meant for Australia from Italy. Then they lied again and claimed the UK had blocked exports of vaccine materials to the EU, which had never happened.
• Now they started claiming the vaccine is dangerous, although according to AZ this is once again not supported by the data (similar to the claim it doesn't work). [1]
• And today they are again claiming AZ is not honouring the contracts, despite having totally failed to produce evidence this is true or even, as far as I know, start a court case related to this supposed violation.
By now the EU/AZ/UK relationship is a disaster zone. EU leaderships just continually obfuscate and make outright false statements about the vaccine and the people who make it. They're lucky AZ is still willing to work with them at all.
EU support is collapsing and many seem to be waking up to its lies. I can't find the original but this pol said 39% of Britons want to rejoin the EU [1]. I'm finding it hard to find any support for the EU's actions in this thread as well.
suddenly HN is keen on defending big pharma. if this happened in the US I can't even imagine the outcry. also, it seems this thread is overrun by brexiteers looking for a win.
the EU signed a contract in good faith but AZ decided it's a big boy and will not honor it, based on some contract technicalities. risky bet.
US from the start blocked vaccine exports, putting "americans first". EU mistakenly allowed exports but because of AZ we can't have nice things happening. so now their exports are blocked and other countries will suffer: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-eu-vac....
Not sure how I feel about this. I can't help but think: "can't help others if you don't put your oxygen mask on first".
It's also hard to see how Americans in particular (and fairly enough any country) wouldn't go absolutely bananas if the government made this huge deal out of COVID-19 and then turn around and exported vaccines to other countries while half a million people were dead.
Certainly at least some of this discussion would depend on where you start from (i.e. maybe you're against the idea of a nation or something) - but from a practical standpoint I don't know if there would even be a United States if the situation unfolded this way - the government simply had no choice, and, I think other governments tried to obfuscate that fact and have their cake and eat it too whereas the U.S. and U.K. were pretty quick to decide and focused on their own citizens first.
Certainly there is room for debate here and it's an interesting discussion to be had.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadFrench politics is transference and blame to deflect blame from the leadership. Currently they promised 10m by end of march in total vaccinated. But in seeing that wouldn't be possible they jumped at the chance to stop issuing it so they can lean on that excuse
The EU did screw up in terms of communication and coordination. The former let to public and media pressure to order more, which negatively impacted short term availability, and the latter let to delays of the vaccination campaigns. The only way the EU could have improved that, so, would have been to serve as a clearing house coordinating exact delivery dates for members based on actual vaccination plans. without those plans, there is nothing the EU could have done. And at least Germany, the biggest member state, doesn't have a true plan. As shown when our government implemented a vaccination summit in Feb of 2021.
The title says "France says" and it reports about a comment from France’s Industry Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher.
The original article seems to be this one: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&u=https:/...
This is the classic EU attitude of absolute overwhelming entitlement.
They will never EVER admit that they fucked up.
For the record, I think the UK govt have been particularly poor handling the crisis overall. Just not on vaccine acquisition.
they did the same with pfizer and that seems to work.
US is blocking exports, "americans first". EU didn't do that but now they have to since the supplier doesn't care about contracts.
suddenly HN is keen on defending big pharma. if this happened in the US I can't even imagine the outcry.
so unless the contract explicitly said "EU gets vaccines only after other countries get vaccines", this is just a meme.
And with AZ being, I could imagine, pretty pissed at the EU (and memeber states) right now, I think that doesn't really help neither.
A bit fucking rich from you not to precise it.
UPDATE: apparently 4$
Essentially whether the UK contract has been fulfilled is pretty black and white where the EU one is significantly less so.
See below:
> "The level of specificity is partially due to the legal systems they're based on. The U.K. contract is written in English law, which will judge whether both parties delivered the goods based on the exact wording of the contract. The EU contract is written in Belgian law, which focuses on whether both parties tried their best to deliver the goods and acted in good faith.
It's these extra details that give the U.K. more leverage to ensure its contract is delivered effectively. While both contracts say all parties will make their “best reasonable effort” to deliver the vaccine, the U.K. government is clearer in asserting its oversight of the agreement.
This core difference, according to a lawyer familiar with the development of the U.K. text, can be chalked up to the fact that the contract sealed with London was written by people with significant experience of purchasing agreements, specifically drug-buying deals. The European Commission’s contract, by contrast, shows a lack of commercial common sense, in the lawyer’s view.
The starkest example of this difference is a clause in the U.K. contract stating that if any party tries to force or persuade AstraZeneca or its subcontractors to do anything that could hold up the supply of the vaccine doses, the government may terminate the deal and invoke what appear to be punishment clauses — although these are largely redacted. "[1]
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-...
To compare, South Africa seems to be paying $5.25 to AstraZeneca. Pfizer vaccine costs $14.70/dose and Moderna $18. You can see why the EU is so dependent on AstraZeneca. It's all about injecting the cheapest vaccine as fast as possible.
Basically, the EU got a super heavy discount on the vaccine price. This also mean that they are last on the line for deliveries. In times of hardship, any sensible business will satisfy clients who pay a significant premium for their product before delivering the noisy client that negociates super harshly and can't stop complaining about your product.
Ursula von der Leyen needs to look herself in the mirror for the supposed "vaccine delivery issues". She willingly looked for the cheapest provider. When you imperatively need a product to be delivered and to work, you pay a premium for it, you don't look to reduce your costs as much as possible.
This was an interview with the AZ CEO when the EU delays first kicked off: https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_...
The core difference for the EU contract was that the EU wouldn't accept any/as-much liability for any harm caused by the vaccine (compared with UK/USA). Not sure the source of this claim.
All in all AZ vaccine is not that significant for the EU anyway - so far the administered doses were about 80% Pfizer. And if you look at the at-risk population (65+) it's probably even higher
Their only silver lining is they have sold a $250 million USD stake in Moderna for $1 billion this month.
This is one of the big problems with the EU when it comes to geopolitical issues and security. Way too dependent on diplomacy and then always get surprised when other entities simply break the rules. I guess maybe the lack of foresight is because they are used to lording it over the EU member states (with a couple of exceptions) and then expect non-EU states to be equally complacent.
Instead of wasting time negotiating on price, they should have built manufacturing capacity within EU borders.
The initial EU plan was to order more than needed, and share these doses with poorer countries outside the EU. Solid plan, badly communicated with badly negotiated contracts and a total lack of coordination and planning on behalf of the member states. As a result, we got the mess we have now.
Edit: The comment originally claimed that EU made vaccines were exported to the USA, this is actually not the case
But also, as E.U. member states are suspending the AstraZeneca vaccine why is it even a problem that the shipments are leaving the E.U.?
I find the response and handling of the entire situation by the E.U. to be a bit perplexing.
1. No actual contract violation appears to be occurring. See my other comments.
2. Supply chains for vaccines are long and complex. The EU risks retaliation by other countries that block supplies to them in return.
3. EU has publicly proclaimed many times it hates the idea of "vaccine nationalism" as it calls it, by which it means countries blocking exports of things. Then they did it, it makes them hypocritical.
4. When governments intervene in third party contracts it makes that part of the world less safe to do business. The company is out of pocket and left to pick up the pieces with the customers. Companies hate that and it's ultimately companies, in a capitalist economy, who do the bulk of the work in society. So making it hard for them to do that means you're less likely to have such companies next time around.
Indeed EU already has a problem in the sense that most vaccines are produced by companies outside its borders, even if some factories are within it.
As for why they are suspending the vaccine whilst also demanding more of it, the suspensions appear to be political? AZ have claimed that the rate of blood clotting issues is actually lower in the vaccinated population than the average population, i.e. vaccines are not causing those issues, it's just coincidence. I don't really know how to interpret this claim - would that imply the vaccine is actually suppressing blood clotting problems? But so far AZ have a track record of making correct claims, and the EU does not, so I am inclined to believe them if that's what the stats say (they don't try to explain the lower incidence rates amongst vaccinated populations, just note that it exists).
Basically by doing so the EU would take Ireland "hostage" over its commercial war with the UK, and it's something the Irish people took very badly.
Concerning the suspension, we just don't have enough info. The EU medical authority is due to talk officially about it next Thursday, but if every EU country is suspending it in advance, I think it will be officially banned/suspended
Well, they are, and that is when you see the UK media accusing EU of 'vaccine nationalism', all the while Europe being one of the major exporter of vaccines, while UK & USA export zero.
> But also, as E.U. member states are suspending the AstraZeneca vaccine why is it even a problem that the shipments are leaving the E.U.?
The safety of the vaccine is under examination & completely unrelated to the procurement issues. Europe has not cancelled the order & still expects it to be fulfilled if the vaccine is deemed safe after the review process is done
> I find the response and handling of the entire situation by the E.U. to be a bit perplexing.
It's quite perplexing because we're all reading about it from the english speaking media who are a bit biased about it to say the least
It's my understanding that only Pfizer/Biontech vaccine doses are being imported from the EU.
https://www.ft.com/content/662ab296-2aef-4179-907c-5dba5c355...
This is false, they are also coming from the Netherlands & Germany
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19042726.oxford-astrazenec...
This isn't my understanding
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/politics/coronavirus-a...
Give us the vaccine! We’re suspending use of the vaccine!
https://youtu.be/DXFdPTaCtkc
The developing story is that Brexit is a slow moving disaster for trade, services, and the stability in Northern Ireland. All of this was predicted.
You're thinking of a few weeks in January. By February cross-border traffic was nearly back to normal (about 90% of similar traffic a year earlier but that's with lockdown, which surely reduces trade).
large chunks of finance and services are being moved to Amsterdam
No, only trading of EU shares which isn't a big market for London to begin with. London has a huge finance ecosystem with many components that have nothing to do with the EU at all.
Northern Ireland is having trouble stocking its supermarket shelves
That cuts both ways. There have also been problems with supermarket shelves in Europe:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1395267/EU-news-supe...
These problems are being resolved over time. One issue is that the EU has pulled out all the stops to make exports from the UK as painful as possible via various forms of malicious rule-enforcement. The UK has not retaliated in kind and in fact is waiving the rules for a while to let EU exporters learn the ropes.
Examples of "malicious rule enforcement" are goods being rejected at the border due to a spelling error in the Latin name of a fish, sandwiches being confiscated from truck drivers, etc. The EU is essentially a protectionist bloc and has got very good at erecting trade barriers through complex certification and tax rules.
There are no technical reasons for most of these new requirements. UK standards and enforcement have not changed from before. However EU has no interest in recognising the reality on the ground, they are interested in finding ways to incentivise membership and empower the Commission. We now see what other all other non-European countries have to pointlessly suffer through when trying to trade with the UK previously - not pleasant.
One thing to bear in mind is that whilst the EU is increasing friction with UK/EU trade, it is now possible to reduce friction with other parts of the world. Already there has been a mini trade deal with the USA such that, for example, 25% tariffs on Scottish whisky are being dropped. So trade gets harder with Europe but is getting easier with other parts of the world.
As for peace in Northern Ireland, it wasn't the UK that just weeks ago tried to impose a hard border there, was it? So much for the EU being dedicated to peace in NI. They give fine words but it lasted less than a month before they violated all those agreements and had to be forced to back down by a massive rebellion.
I believe NI's problems are specifically UK based, general goods supermarkets, which are the most common, having issues stocking shelves (Sainsbury's had to get items from SPAR, because SPAR are EU based and thus have the infrastructure/customs stuff sorted out).
That increases inventory in transit and lead times, but being stuck at the border for an unpredictable amount of time does that as well. Not to mention the costs for having the trucks waiting there, usually somewhere between 150 and 250/300 Euros per day. I mean, it's not that companies didn't know what happens and prepare upfront.
A supermarket purely dependent on British treats... I can attest that all other supermarkets are fully stocked and haven't noticed the slightest of Brexit.
Comparing general supermarkets supplies to specialty retailers serving expat communities is a joke.
Bravado about how great London is at finance doesn't dismiss that Amsterdam trading volumes have tripled and London's trading volumes have halved.
Whining about how unfair and malicious the EU is is just the reality of how the EU treats all third party countries. Being outside the club is a bit miserable.
1) Leaving on WTO rules would crash the British economy
2) Leaving with a deal would be better than 1), but still bad
The UK is on 2) at the moment.
But delivery of goods on agreed terms is "begging" now? And your choice of GBP/USD window is rather convenient, as is the choice of currency. Have a peek at GBP/EUR over 10 years.
As for the British economy, we're only 3.5 months in to trading on something approaching the new terms and the UK is already choking on the 'oven ready' Withdrawla Agreement and is flatly refusing to implement parts of it because it simply can't cope or perhaps never planned to act in good faith in the first place. We will see how this plays out with future trade negotiations -- the world is watching.
AZ must surely see the EU as a colossal pain in the rear by now. If EU want to be treated as higher priority they're doing it all wrong because repeatedly abusing and pissing off the people who can make your vaccine is not a smart move. So far we have seen:
• EU leaders haggled for months over cost and didn't sign early contracts, despite AZ producing it not-for-profit.
• EU publicly claimed AZ were in violation of contract. AZ denied it. Then the Commission released the contract redacted, but they redacted it incorrectly which let people see the EU was lying and AZ was telling the truth.
• EU regulators reached same decision as UK regulators but much slower. At one point when asked why they still hadn't approved it, their answer was something like "AZ didn't contact us yet". Apparently proactively reaching out was not imaginable.
• Multiple EU leaders then claimed the vaccine didn't work, which turned out to be another lie.
• Then they briefly attempted to violate the supposedly sacrosanct and inviolable Northern Ireland protocol to stop AZ vaccine being exported from the EU (which didn't have any) to the UK (which had lots). Beyond making no sense at all this also showed the EU had been lying again for years during the Brexit negotiations, as they repeatedly claimed to be totally committed to NI peace process and would never accept anything that could lead to a border. All tossed out the window just weeks after the UK/EU transition period ended.
• EU repeatedly claimed to hate vaccine nationalism and find it totally unacceptable. Then they blocked export of AZ vaccine meant for Australia from Italy. Then they lied again and claimed the UK had blocked exports of vaccine materials to the EU, which had never happened.
• Now they started claiming the vaccine is dangerous, although according to AZ this is once again not supported by the data (similar to the claim it doesn't work). [1]
• And today they are again claiming AZ is not honouring the contracts, despite having totally failed to produce evidence this is true or even, as far as I know, start a court case related to this supposed violation.
By now the EU/AZ/UK relationship is a disaster zone. EU leaderships just continually obfuscate and make outright false statements about the vaccine and the people who make it. They're lucky AZ is still willing to work with them at all.
[1] https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021...
[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1407808/brexit-lates...
the EU signed a contract in good faith but AZ decided it's a big boy and will not honor it, based on some contract technicalities. risky bet.
US from the start blocked vaccine exports, putting "americans first". EU mistakenly allowed exports but because of AZ we can't have nice things happening. so now their exports are blocked and other countries will suffer: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-eu-vac....
Not sure how I feel about this. I can't help but think: "can't help others if you don't put your oxygen mask on first".
It's also hard to see how Americans in particular (and fairly enough any country) wouldn't go absolutely bananas if the government made this huge deal out of COVID-19 and then turn around and exported vaccines to other countries while half a million people were dead.
Certainly at least some of this discussion would depend on where you start from (i.e. maybe you're against the idea of a nation or something) - but from a practical standpoint I don't know if there would even be a United States if the situation unfolded this way - the government simply had no choice, and, I think other governments tried to obfuscate that fact and have their cake and eat it too whereas the U.S. and U.K. were pretty quick to decide and focused on their own citizens first.
Certainly there is room for debate here and it's an interesting discussion to be had.