I’ll try and give you an honest answer to all you bring up. I haven’t really kept up with news today but I think I’m informed enough to give you a general response.
I believe the EU have really scored an own goal here.
I don’t believe that this was an issue caused by Brexit and should have been kept separate and between AZ and the EU.
The shambolic handling of this by someone or someones possibly above their pay grades has well and truly made it a Brexit issue.
That’s a big mistake.
I do believe that as you have stressed as one of your reasons for supporting Brexit, the bureaucracy involved in a time of crisis is a drawback to acting quickly.
Not that I’m making Covid out to be a positive for Boris and his government. He got off to a very slow start in his initial response. You’ve been hit hard, but the timing of this vaccine roll out issue is a shot in the arm (sorry) for Brexit in general.
I’m putting this together quickly and I really do hope that statement doesn’t come across as flippant.
Threatening to invoke Article 16 was a bad bad decision and I believe like
@BobKowalski that it was never going to happen.
I believe your government acted correctly and am sure communications between yourselves, ourselves and NI would have been going on in the background and the correct diplomatic response was for Martin and Coveney to raise their concerns to the EU.
It is being reported here that Martin made a very strong communication to the EU, possibly Barnier, I don’t know, but RTE news reports through Coveney is that it was a regrettable mistake by the EU and is confident it will not happen again.
My concern, apart from the Covid issue, where the AZ vaccine is the cornerstone of our vaccination program, is that this balls up is exact the kind of thing that the DUP would seek exploit further for their own purposes.
You see NI as effectively being used as a pawn by the EU. There’s no doubt someone messed up big time but ultimately I don’t believe we will allow that happen. Do we have that clout?
Well in matters regarding the NIP and more importantly the GFA I would like to believe, Yes, we have far more of a say than our size would normally dictate.
However I think internally or locally on the island of Ireland as a whole we have far less power over an emboldened DUP, who I do not believe ever had the best interests of the GFA at heart.
So yes, this was a much bigger mistake than, whoever in the EU that called it, thought. Or didn’t think
Regarding the corporate tax issue, they’ve been trying to press us on that for quite a while and I’ve no doubt we will have compromises to make for years to come within this union, but ideologically on the benefits to my country, Ireland, I see membership as far more beneficial in the long run than you do for Britain had you remained.
I think although this was a fuck up, there is no sugar coating it, from an Irish point of view, whereas you may be right with your final statement, I do think perhaps as much for our relationship with yourselves and NI as anything else, that we may well have more of a say than normally expected.
Moving on from this, we were promised 600,000 AZ vaccines by February 15th and now expecting to get perhaps 300,000 a week earlier.
So a compromise. We get to start the program earlier and keep the lines of negotiations open and cordial.
Not the EU’s finest hour, but I think much of the arguments I’ve read in here over this Covid issue and contractual law etc. have taken over the whole Brexit issue and the point scoring is still going on which really adds no genuine information to the thread.
In general I think Covid occupying the airwaves for a while suits Johnson and whoever is keeping him quiet is giving good advice.
www.bbc.co.uk
infacts.org
blogs.lse.ac.uk
www.thelondoneconomic.com