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[martinuzz]

But no, I am not from Lichtenstein, I am from Lichtstad (City of Lights). At least, that's what my hometown used to be called when our homeboy Philips still made lightbulbs.


EINDHOVEN DE GEKSTE WOENSEL WEST, JONGUH!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIKP7dFSG9E

[feelotraveller]

Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

Mr. Blue Sky

[Loud Whispers]

UK and EU in diplomatic row after EU insists it's a country and UK insists the EU's an international organisation

[scriver]

Even after leaving the EU, it seems the UK remains the staunchest defender of Europe from federalisation.

Not that the bar is particularly high, mind

[bloop_bleep]

inb4 Napoleon's great-great-great-great-great-grandson seizes control of the EU and declares the return of the French Empire.

[martinuzz]

Does that mean we get Canada for free?

[Loud Whispers]

inb4 Napoleon's great-great-great-great-great-grandson seizes control of the EU and declares the return of the French Empire.

Boris to Putin: what ho jolly old bean it's time again
Putin to Boris: time for what?
Boris to Putin: time for you to get invaded by the French

[Iduno]

Europe jokes crossing over with Coronavirus thread (but what isn't).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[dragdeler]

-

[Loud Whispers]

So this is an interesting case in probably what is the first real incidence of inter UK-EU diplomacy (if you discount the UK-EU row over whether the EU was capable of conducting diplomacy in any fashion). So one of the problems caused by the UK withdrawal of the European Union program is that the UK was the centre of the European Union's drug regulatory bodies. Subsequently the EU side of things had to rebuild their regulatory capacities from ground up, which would've been all right if corona didn't hit two years later, putting a nascent institution to the test.

Cue corona, where the UK government fucks up literally everything at every stage where the pandemic could've been manageable. Thankfully UK drug regulation is not conducted by the gov, so naturally everything happens quickly. At this point the EU states they'd prefer a slow roll-out instead of taking the risk of rushing vaccine production. And this is the important part - in 2020 all of the major European national centres of biotech made the deliberate decision to slow down vaccine approval:

EU politicians, meanwhile, defended the bloc’s approach. France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, said France and the 26 other EU member states had “opted for the collective approach – for speed and for safety”.
Beaune said that contrary to claims by some British politicians, the UK had not “benefited from Brexit in its decision”, since Britain was “still bound, until 31 December, to the European framework”. The British government had simply “opted for certain accelerated procedures” available to all, he said.
The German health minister, Jens Spahn, also said the UK had chosen a different route – limited emergency authorisation – that Germany “could have chosen too, but we consciously decided against it”.

Which in my opinion is not necessarily a bad thing; everyone prefers a vaccine with a high volume of clinically proven efficacy and safety, and waiting for studies and regulatory approval from 26 countries offers more chance for peer review than the studies and review of 1. Obviously, waiting for 26 countries is also much slower than waiting for 1. The key thing here is that the EU chose this path. The natural trade-off is that the EU would start vaccine production later, which anyone with a basic understanding of the linearity of time would be able to understand. Which brings us to the trade war, and the EU's disastrous response to the UK's hastened vaccine production.

Macron starts getting criticism that he doesn't even have a national vaccine policy and the French people don't even want to take the vaccine. Merkel starts catching flak from German researchers who are bloody confused why Germany has so little vaccines when a German company (BioNTech) helped develop the Pfizer-BioNTech. Even the Netherlands and Belgium have been embarassed domestically and across the EU by having such a slow vaccine rollout whilst exporting vaccines to the UK.

To make matters worse, these tensions have reached a flashpoint after a production failure at an Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine production plant in Belgium cut monthly production from 100 million vaccine doses to 25 million.

This has led to the EU threatening a trade war with the UK unless the UK sends the EU vaccines produced in the UK.
The UK gov did one thing right; it secured many vaccine contracts and it secured them early in anticipation that things could go wrong. Vaccines could later prove to be unsafe, or ineffective, or there could be production issues. This is the only reason why the UK Astrazeneca production is moving on without problems - because those problems were resolved in the first months, the same way they would be in the Belgian production line which is just younger than the UK one. But the European countries who decided to purchase their vaccines through the European Union have had to wait, even if like Portugal or Spain, the need to vaccinate exceeds the need for European political centralisation. This is made all the fucking richer when the Germans are on the one hand, saying the UK fucked the EU by making vaccines early (???), then saying the EU needs to maintain solidarity against the UK (we want to help!), then breaking EU law by purchasing vaccines on a bilateral basis for themselves. Rules for me and rules for thee; I can't fucking stand the European Union. Even Germany knows the EU vaccine policy doesn't make any fucking sense, but they don't have the decency to let the southern Europeans buy their own vaccines whilst they break ranks. Instead they'd rather start a stupid fucking trade war, to threaten to kill British people, and for what?

The UK companies have from the start been working with other countries' companies to increase worldwide production via licensing agreements and joint research-production ventures. The Germans can start this bloody trade war all they want, they have no ability to take British vaccines made in Britain, and just last week we approved production of another vaccine. All they're going to do is sever joint research, development and production in future between the UK and EU in the middle of a pandemic, lowering European vaccine production AND IMPORTS. I'm so disappointed and irate. This is why dealing with countries is so much nicer. We do joint production with India and India doesn't pull this shit. We do joint research and development with the USA and the USA doesn't pull this shit. We try joint research and production with the EU and they're accountable to absolutely no one when they fuck themselves, fuck us, fuck the world. Fuck em

Anyways now that I'm done venting, the only solution is to increase vaccine production internationally. Capturing vaccine share of a small pie doesn't mean shit. Godspeed Europeans, you're gonna get killed by a government club that thinks its a country. I hope the UK gov just allows UK companies to directly export to European countries directly so Euros other than Germany can actually get some fucking vaccines. Jesus Christ, do they seriously think any country is ever going to work in the EU again if they're just going to steal shit whenever they feel like it?

[martinuzz]

Turns out that the EU was right though. AstraZeneca, after being asked by the EU to do so repeatedly and refusing, finally declassified (most of) their contract with the EU to the public today.
They are contractually bound to supply the EU their promised vaccins from all their factories, including those in the UK.
They are also contractually bound that no other contract can get in the way of supplying the EU, including contracts with the UK.

AstraZeneca topman Soirot was lying when he said earlier this week that AstraZeneca had no obligation to do more than 'try their best' to supply the EU. He was also lying when he suggested that the contract stated that the UK had priority over the EU.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/astrazeneca-groot-britannie-krijgt-geen-voorrang-op-eu-bij-levering-van-oxfordvaccin~bfd93dd5/

So yeah, I get that UK press and the people are upset if this means they will be getting vaccinated later.  But please be mad at AstraZeneca  and not at the EU.

[Loud Whispers]

Turns out that the EU was right though. AstraZeneca, after being asked by the EU to do so repeatedly and refusing, finally declassified (most of) their contract with the EU to the public today.

What utter dishonesty. It pains me that it takes so many more words to explain why Ursula von de Leyen is full of shit than it takes for Ursula von de Leyen to spew shit.

There is no dispute that AstraZeneca included the two UK production sites in the vaccine supply chain; the country of origin is only of legal significance in whether or not AstraZeneca needs approval to start vaccine production for EU-bound vaccines in a non-EU country. If AstraZeneca wanted to produce EU-bound vaccines in the USA, for example, they would need to give written notice beforehand to the EU to proceed. The EU and AstraZeneca both agreed that vaccine production in the UK would not need prior-written notice.

The EU then makes the puzzling leap of judgement in asserting this gives them rights to seize British vaccines. And I'm not just talking about vaccines made in the UK, I'm also talking about the vaccines we've been buying from Belgium and the Netherlands; as far as the law is concerned here it doesn't matter if the vaccines are made in the UK, the EU or the USA, who purchased them owns them.

They are also contractually bound that no other contract can get in the way of supplying the EU, including contracts with the UK.

Having read what has been released, I haven't found any clause stating ""hey are also contractually bound that no other contract can get in the way of supplying the EU, including contracts with the UK." This would have been a highly strange deal for AstraZeneca to make too, you know, considering they made their deal with the UK long before the EU signed a deal with them. So until the EU President publishes the document showing how AstraZeneca decided to cancel their contract with the UK in favour of the EU, I will maintain that the EU President is a thief of thieves.

AstraZeneca topman Soirot was lying when he said earlier this week that AstraZeneca had no obligation to do more than 'try their best' to supply the EU. He was also lying when he suggested that the contract stated that the UK had priority over the EU.

Ursula von de Leyen accused Soirot of lying. However, if you read the contract, it's plain as day Soirot told the truth and Ursula von de Leyen was lying. She said there is a clause stating the EU takes priority over the UK. There isn't. She said there isn't a clause about "Best Reasonable Efforts," nor is there even a mention of the phrase "Best Reasonable Efforts" - but of course, there is. Not only is it referenced practically every clause, but it even has its own spot in the list of legal definitions:

1.9 "Best Reasonable Efforts" means
(a) In the case of AstraZeneca, the activities and degree of effort that a company of similar size with a similarly-sized infrastructure and similar resources as AstraZeneca would undertake or use in the development and manufacture of a Vaccine at the relevant stage of development or commercialization having regard to the urgent need for a Vaccine to end a global pandemic which is resulting in serious public health issues, restrictions on personal freedoms and economic impact, across the world but taking into account efficacy and safety; and
(b) In the case of the Commission and the Participating Member States, the activities and degree of effort that governments would undertake or use in supporting their contractor in the development of the Vaccine having regard to the urgent need for a Vaccine to end a global pandemic which is resulting in serious public health issues, restrictions on personal freedoms and economic impact, across the world.

Plain as day brazen EU lying.

5.1 Initial Europe Doses. AstraZeneca shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Initial Europe Doses within the EU for distribution, and to deliver to the Distribution Hubs, following EU marketing authorizaation, as set forth more fully in section 7.1, approximately [redacted] 2020 [redacted] Q1 2021, and (iii) the remainder of the Initial Europe Doses by the end of [redacted].

5.4 Manufacturing Sites. AstraZeneca shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Vaccine at manufacturing sites located within the EU (which, for the purpose of this Section 5.4 only shall include the United Kingdom) and may manufacture the Vaccine in non-EU facilities, if appropriate, to accelerate supply of the Vaccine in Europe; provided, that AstraZeneca shall provide prior written notice of such non-EU manufacturing facilities to the Commission which shall include an explanation for such determination to use non-EU manufacturing facilities.

More plain as day brazen EU lying. Clearly says AZ shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Vaccine.

18.7. Force Majeure. Neither the Commission nor the Participating Member States nor AstraZeneca shall be held liable or responsible to the other Party or be deemed to have breached this Agreement for failure or delay in fulfilling or performing any term of this Agreement when such failure or delay is caused by or results from events beyond the reasonable control of the non-performing Party, including fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, embargoes, shortages, epidemics, quarantines, war, acts of war (whether war be declared or not), terrorist acts, insurrections, riots, civil commotion, strikes, lockouts or other employment disturbances (whether involving the workforce or the non-performing Party or of any other person) acts of God or acts, omissions or delays in acting by any government authority (except to the extent such delay results from the breach by the non-performing Party or any of its Affiliates of any term or condition of this Agreement. Defaults of service, defects in equipment or material or delays in making them available, labour disputes, strikes and financial difficulties may not be invoked as force majeure, unless they stem directly from a relevant case of force majeure.

[snipped some more stuff because seriously I am typing this by hand]

The suspension of performance shall be of no greater scope and no longer duration than is necessary and the non-performing Party shall use Best Reasonable Efforts to remedy its inability to perform and limit any damage.

And of course the relevant part here is that the non-performing Party shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to remedy its inability to perform and limit any damage.

He was also lying when he suggested that the contract stated that the UK had priority over the EU.

No, what Soirot said was that there is no priority clause at all in the EU-AZ contract. The EU told him to break the UK-AZ contract, which had been signed months before the EU began negotiating with AZ, and Soirot said no. What's more, is that Soirot stressed the only reason the UK production sites are working fine and the Belgian one is not, is that the UK production sites have been producing for longer, giving them more time to rapidly increase scale of production after working out all the faults. If the EU just gave the EU production sites enough time and stopped fucking raiding them, then they would take the same amount of time as the UK sites to reach these historic levels of production.

So yeah, I get that UK press and the people are upset if this means they will be getting vaccinated later.  But please be mad at AstraZeneca  and not at the EU.

I've gone over the legal aspects of the dispute, now I want to address the moral and political aspects.

THE GOOD AND THE BAD
The EU deliberately retarded European vaccine development as policy. They could've chosen to begin hasty development, at risk of procuring vaccines which had low efficacy or high risk. Now they have the option to begin procuring vaccines that other nations like the UK have tested on their populace, but the consequence of that is also that they are at the back of the queue. The UK has produced more German-developed vaccines than Germany, we've just began production of a French-developed vaccine last week, and just one hospital in my area of London has vaccinated more people last week than were vaccinated in the entirety of France or Germany.

This is not the fault of the UK, this is the fault of the EU. By ensuring no government could negotiate directly with vaccine production companies, all EU nations were dependent upon the EU to choose which vaccines, how much and when. This led to that obvious madness of the UK making more European developed vaccines than Europe. This situation should not exist, and would not exist if the EU did not exist. For Germany to break ranks and negotiate directly anyways whilst the Portuguese and Spanish die is just icing on top of the cake of hypocrisy.

How is this right?
This isn't even about AZ in particular. I'm just fucking astounded at how badly the EU has blockaded Europe, and then it has the bloody gall to turn to the country with the highest death rate in Europe and say "You know those vaccines? yeah the one you developed, made and bought before I even signed a deal? Yeah give them to me or I'll start a trade war with you.

THE UGLY
The majority of AstraZeneca vaccines that were destined for use in the UK are made in the UK. The UK has a very mature biotech industry and in 2019 was the #1 exporter of vaccines in the world. The EU doesn't have a single mechanism capable of stopping AZ or any other pharmaceutical company from delivering the vaccines they've promised to the UK. It is honestly chilling to think that if we didn't, the EU would be completely happy to kill us in exchange for a few months catch-up to a game they decided wasn't worth playing.

The EU's only teeth would be to halt the export of AZ vaccines made in the EU, which I expect they will do, because the EU enjoys making the mistake of being a team killing fucktard. By starting this trade war, the UK is not going to be able to export vaccines OR medicines to EU nations. This shit is going to get way out of hand, and it doesn't make any fucking logistical or political sense.

The UK is trying to boost production and availability everywhere. In the UK, in the EU, even across the world via COVAX. The doses the UK has already paid for will be used in the UK whether or not the EU agrees; if the EU seizes the vaccines we've purchased from EU sites, we'll be forced to halt exports to the EU, and we currently vastly outproduce the entire EU in vaccine production. It's not even a choice which outcome is better.

Option A: The EU puts its toys back in the pram and lets AZ actually set up vaccine production within the EU at a scale which will meet the historic demand of the corona vaccine. This only benefits the EU and has no disadvantages.

Option B: The EU starts a trade war with the UK over medicine and vaccines. The EU seizes AZ vaccines made in EU sites, but loses access to all UK medicine exports (for treating COVID), loses access to all UK manufactured vaccines they've ordered and after the UK's vulnerable pops are vaccinated, loses access to all the surplus vaccines the UK will be exporting.

People like me in the UK want to see to it that when we have finished vaccinating our vulnerable pops, we start exporting our vaccines worldwide so that other countries can vaccinate their vulnerable pops. It doesn't make sense to vaccinate a local healthy person before a foreign doctor. But your leaders come at us with such fucking venom, telling us they have to show us their weapons, what the actual fuck? Who do they think they are, threatening people who are helping them? How can I convince anyone here now that we should send vaccines to the EU?

*EDIT
It has begun. Speak of the devil, and the devil will decide to commit collective suicide on everyone's behalf. There is a clear option where everyone wins here and the EU would rather, to paraphrase again, fuck them, fuck us, fuck everyone, fuck the world

[martinuzz]

I think the main EU frustration lies in the fact that they subsidized AstraZenica with 336 million euros in the early stages of their first clinical trials, to expand production capabilities, of which Astrazenica spent 200 million, and now they are not getting the agreed upon amount of doses (which are still classified, in the contract released by AstraZenica, the amount agreed was censored out.


But yeah.. What the EU is doing now, closing the Irish borders, that's just too silly even for standards of british slapstick humour.
Bad move.

Why this whole thing has devolved from a business dispute between the EU and a pharma company into a Brexit row is beyond me.

[Loud Whispers]

I think the main EU frustration lies in the fact that they subsidized AstraZenica with 336 million euros in the early stages of their first clinical trials, to expand production capabilities, of which Astrazenica spent 200 million, and now they are not getting the agreed upon amount of doses (which are still classified, in the contract released by AstraZenica, the amount agreed was censored out.

It's not about the money, it's about the time. Shit like this has never been done before, not on this scale.

But yeah.. What the EU is doing now, closing the Irish borders, that's just too silly even for standards of british slapstick humour.
Bad move.

I'm so worried, because I am certain the British response will be stupid too.

Why this whole thing has devolved from a business dispute between the EU and a pharma company into a Brexit row is beyond me.

An EU President trying to touch UK vaccines?

It was inevitable

*EDIT

The UK has been left off a list of more than 120 countries exempted from tighter export restrictions on vaccines produced in the EU, in the latest twist in the bloc’s row with AstraZeneca over a shortage of doses.

Stella Kyriakides, the EU’s health commissioner, said the bloc was not protecting itself “against any specific country” but that it needed to ensure contracted pharmaceutical companies lived up to their promises.

The new export mechanism obliges all vaccine producers to inform national authorities of any intended exports to countries outside a lengthy list of exemptions, with member states empowered to reject applications if they believe EU supplies would be impacted.

The UK joins Russia and Turkey as countries within the vicinity of the EU that have been left off the exemption list. Further afield, the US and Canada are also not included.

Are you fucking kidding me

The EU is happy to export vaccines to:
-Israel
-Egypt
-Jordan
-Lebanon
-Libya
-Morocco
-Palestine
-Switzerland
-Syria
-Tunisia
-Armenia
-Azerbaijan
-Belarus
-Georgia
-Moldova
-Norway
-Ukraine

But draws the line at
-UK
-Turkey
-Russia

Way to turn friends into enemies. I'm so fucking disappointed in the EU, and my expectations were low to begin with. It's just killing people for no fucking reason

[ChairmanPoo]

AFAIK the EU (or rather, the countries within the EU,) was happy to export vaccines while the pharma companies were up to the program. But the last two weeks have brought the double whammy of Pfizer's "6-dose" sheanigans alongside reduced production, and Astrazeneca trying to weasel out of its contract. I kind of can understand why national goverments are getting paranoid. The UK is also restricting exports of a number of covid-related goods.
 I honestly think the vaccine row has very little to do with  Brexit and the UK and a lot with pharma companies' price gouging tactics.


I still think the whole western world has dropped the ball regarding pandemic management. In China they are not as worried about vaccine rollour because they got the outbreaks under control early on.