I don’t really see how the AZ EU dispute is a Brexit issue tbh.
Other than the fact that two different jurisdictions had two different policies in the role out.
The thing is AZ took the money from the EU up front for the development of upping the manufacturing capacity for everyone and signed a contract, which I wouldn’t mind seeing, saying what they would supply.
I’d imagine the UK government has a similar contract worth seeing.
The EU are perfectly within their rights to sue AZ and their members would expect nothing less.
If fulfilling the EU order impacts on the UK contract being fulfilled then the UK government would be perfectly within their rights to sue AZ also, and you would expect them to.
If you want to talk about the ethics or morality of the situation then examine the private company profiting from a crisis by promising more than they can deliver and accepting the development money knowingly.
These pharmaceuticals are not in this for altruism, it’s not purely for the benefit of mankind.
Otherwise why don’t they sell the vaccine off patent. We have enough pharmaceutical companies here in Ireland that could manufacture our own, but there is less profit in that.
Britain pursued their own policy as is their right but this dispute has nothing to do with Brexit. IMO.
Brexit has everything to do with them threatening Britain, not for the reason of leaving but they wouldn’t be threatening Britain with blocking exports if we were still in the bloc, I don’t think anyone would argue that as it would threaten the very nature of the Four Freedoms if they did.
But ok, Britain did leave and therefore they are welcome to act in their own interest, which I would be saying if it was clothes or mustard or hair combs, but this is life saving medicine they are playing with.
The Oxford vaccine was developed by scientists in the UK, with funding from the UK taxpayer, at a British institution.
Britain approved it and paid its own business before the EU did, comfortably so as well.
The EU was very late to the party and now they have arrived there have been hiccups and things haven’t gone to plan regarding supply. Fortunately for us the UK acted far quicker and has got a lot of its supply, which is mostly being manufactured here, by British citizens, on our manufacturing plants.
Had the EU not pissed about they would be in a far better place and would have a chunk of that supply that is now being administered to UK citizens.
Of course AZ need to pull their fingers out but to say they haven’t humanity in mind is very sceptical thinking and also without actual knowledge of their operation. They could have charged more after all.
Contractually I agree, the EU has a right to be annoyed by AZ but I doubt AZ are being slow on purpose, even Vallance said tonight they’re not making widgets, they’re making vaccines which takes time and there’s always some delays with these types of products and even so when hundreds of millions needs vaccines.
The rest of Europe, your country included, is very very fucking lucky British science developed this vaccine, as we are in Britain too I should add, so we’re not all relying on one American company, with a vaccine that is much harder to transfer and store, that is having supply issues itself.
The EU has fucked about and is now trying to bully itself into a better situation because there are supply issues they should have planned for, rather than threatening to block exports of this vaccine and the other that Britain had approved and paid for 2 months ago, to the very country that developed one of the two main vaccines in the world, they should take it up with AZ directly, without threatening the lives of UK citizens, because of their own ineptitude.
The level of being ungrateful bullies is telling.
www.telegraph.co.uk
sciencebusiness.net