Political relations between UK-EU

[Vic]

You mean the contract that says "best endeavors" and that the vaccines are being supplied to the EU at cost price. With the 50% specialist EU lawyers who say the clause you state may be enforceable is pretty much unenforceable because of the first two clauses. Of course 50% of specialist EU lawyers say it isn't enforceable anyway.
Making vaccines is not manufacturing widgets. Identical plant equipment produces different results due to temperature, humidity water supply etc.
If the EU wanted the vaccines available at the required volumes earlier. They should also have approved the vaccine sooner and signed the contract a lot earlier so the production plant had a better chance of working.
UK production wasn't working properly till the end of December and they had 3 months longer to sort issues out.
Your precious EU has fucked up here big style.

Good grief. You said the UK plants were nothing to do with the EU. The relevant clause says they are (for this purpose) in the EU. Nothing to do with other clauses in the contract. AZ must under the contract treat the UK plants as if in the EU (for the purpose of the contract).

Once more - they are not nationalised, they belong to AZ, they are not "British".

 

[west didsblue]

I do absolutely accept the rationale of your argument. Your presumption here - not unreasonably in the absence of anything to the contrary - is our continued reliance on trade with the EU which we need to dilute in order to make a success of brexit.

Breakups are always hard but time gives great perspective.

Every country in the world relies on trade with its closest neighbours for the simple reason it's cheaper, quicker and easier to move goods and people. Making that process harder is always going to have a negative effect on cost and choice. It's all very well thinking that we can substitute that trade with trade from further afield but for the majority of commodities it's going to be more costly and less efficient. There was no reason why we couldn't have pushed for more trade with the RoW while we were members and we were indeed quite successful at that, but to expect the RoW to make up the gap in a cost effective way as EU trade reduces and becomes more costly is fanciful.
All this excitement about joining CPTPP is quite comical when the nearest country is Canada with which we already have an agreement and the next nearest is 6000 miles away. I'm still waiting for India to apply to join USMCA and Mexico to apply for EU accession. That would make about as much sense.

 

[smudgedj]

 

[Ancient Citizen]

It wasn't a "procuration dogma". I can't offhand think of anything else where the EU centralises procurement. It was with the noble aim of fairly distributing vaccines according to the population of each country rather than a free-for-all that would see wealthier countries outbidding poorer countries and competing with other countries for priority deliveries. Put the clock back to April last year, and (with hindsight) see how the UK does if there is no EU co-operation, just a scramble to get in first, with possibly a bidding war for priority.

It's gone wrong for the EU, but without what you call a procurement dogma and I call a noble attempt at fair access, the UK might not be in such a good position. I'm not sure you're right about what Merkel and Macron wanted but, on your way of working, what would be the consequences for the UK if EU countries had not co-operated on supplying material for AstraZeneca?

And the "hate your country" stuff should stop. It's desperately shallow. Pride in Britain is fine (not least what Oxford has done) but it's still an international team with international money, and I certainly hope that in the end putting Britain first (so that less vulnerable people here have priority over more vulnerable people elsewhere) does not mean the virus is eradicated less quickly.

Put it this way - what's your priority? Getting vaccinated yourself, or eradicating Coronavirus?

(Maybe I'm the only person on here that listens to "The Moral Maze")

Oh, right, so you never criticised the government for not entering an EU
procurement programme, a decision that proved your obsession with this
corrupt bureaucracy, did you? Noble aim my arse, the EU has been bickering and dithering for months, Macron wanted his name in lights with the new marvellous French vaccine, but their plants can't produce one. he's then seen his arse and we all know what happened since. Germany tried ordering it bypassing the EU, there's nothing noble
about any of it, this country, out of the EU, reacted, they didn't.

Germany ‘violates’ EU joint vaccine scheme by buying 30 million extra doses

Berlin had promoted pact that no members of the bloc would strike separate deals to secure jabs

www.theweek.co.uk

Put it this way - what's your priority? Getting vaccinated yourself, or eradicating Coronavirus?

Is this an attempt to suggest your more altruistic than anyone else?
I've seen some jaw dropping shite on here many times, but this takes the
proverbial, but for shits and giggles I'll respond.
I most certainly would get vaccinated myself, as would everyone I know,
and who I'm related to, and, although it shouldn't need any explanation, the reasons are extremely simple.
1) I, you, or anyone else cannot solve the world's problems by opting to
share in the suffering, life isn't like that.
2)If you think that any rational UK citizens would decide to hang on until Mutti and Napoleon have decided to put a fucking order in, well carry on,
in fact, when you get offered yours, give Macron a ring and offer it to him.

 

[Vic]

"Noble attempt at fair access"?
It was for EU countries only, not the folks in Africa and Asia. They are relatively all rich countries.
So - consequences: If the EU had been able to block materials going to the AZ UK plants then we wouldn't have been able to make the vaccines in the UK until we had got the materials for somewhere else. More people would die.
However, there would also be consequences for the EU, Assuming little old us wasn't able to retaliate, slowing their efforts even further, then at the very least all of the knowledge gained on how to optimise production learned in the UK plants for the last few months would not have been available to the Belgian plant. So they would get fewer EU made vaccines short term, and also wouldn't get the vaccines from the UK plants after the initial 100m doses are fulfilled. So it would be stupid, and more people would die.
Plus, what credibility would they have after that.


Are you just winding people up?
The other aspect was the Oxford Uni view they wanted the vaccine to be cheap and accessible - hence at cost. Not on offer form Merck.
But yes, people in Britain do expect better healthcare than most of the world. Like we do for other treatments
Put it another way, if the contract had allowed the EU to take all of the UK manufactured vaccines, you'd rightly want Hancock sacked if he was involved.


It is the same document. I don't see an order form?
13.1(e) refers to "the initial Europe doses" which it commits to putting in capacity for, which post dates the UK plants which they were already doing. The UK kicks in as a supplier if they can't meet the deliveries. We can go round in circles on this, but I think the EU have realised that they don't have a legal case so I think that is more important.

I'm not arguing against international cooperation. I'm saying that Britain's demand for priority delivery might have discouraged that cooperation (with the problems you highlighted).

You were quoting bits from the order form, which starts on p.35.

The contract has dates for delivery of the initial Europe doses, and AZ warranties that there were no obligations that would impede that, and I can't grasp how a separate agreement to give Britain priority for 30m vaccines would not impede the EU's contract (and no-one here has attempted it).

At least you are engaging with the issue unlike some who clearly have no desire to understand how the EU ended up not getting what they thought they'd got a contract to get.

 

[metalblue]

Every country in the world relies on trade with its closest neighbours for the simple reason it's cheaper, quicker and easier to move goods and people. Making that process harder is always going to have a negative effect on cost and choice. It's all very well thinking that we can substitute that trade with trade from further afield but for the majority of commodities it's going to be more costly and less efficient. There was no reason why we couldn't have pushed for more trade with the RoW while we were members and we were indeed quite successful at that, but to expect the RoW to make up the gap in a cost effective way as EU trade reduces and becomes more costly is fanciful.
All this excitement about joining CPTPP is quite comical when the nearest country is Canada with which we already have an agreement and the next nearest is 6000 miles away. I'm still waiting for India to apply to join USMCA and Mexico to apply for EU accession. That would make about as much sense.

All fair positions to hold. The main points I would make on trade with RoW are twofold; firstly we were always hamstrung by EU tariffs when trying to negotiate anything which leaves them thinking why bother and secondly being in the EU has left us having inward looking trade policies and strategies. This doesn’t mean somehow being free of the “shackles” of EU federalism and protectionism is automatically going to lead us to sunny uplands but I don’t think we can really judge it yet (either way)

 

[BobKowalski]

Yes and no. Trade barriers in themselves don’t necessarily restrict trade in the longer term but rather redefine it. I get the point you are making and why you make it.

The brexit deal in itself still requires technical work and in my opinion the EU will continue to fight against an independent UK (hopeful of a future “more EU friendly” UK government) - this l know isn’t helpful for business now who are the collateral in this ....but we must give it more time before writing it off -the next 12 months are key to see if we can move away from the EU otherwise we will become increasingly closer. I hope it’s the former otherwise this has been a gigantic waste of everyone’s time.

Agreed, arguably free trade deals should be called trade management deals, however we cannot escape the logic that countries seek to reduce trade barriers in order to boost overall trade and if that is true then the opposite is also true.

This leads nicely to when I described the Brexit deal as being a ‘management tool’ for the EU, it allows them to manage the UK by trading our desire for more frictionless access (as highlighted currently by the fishing and agricultural sectors) for their desire for control. Financial Services has yet to be negotiated and we are operating on a time limited basis in some FS areas (whereas the US is not). All we have done is hand the EU leverage, it is the very opposite of control. We had no control over the aborted decision to trigger the Article 16 NI provisions. Fortunately, Dublin had the decision nixed in under four hours, but who had the most leverage? Dublin or London?

The two deals we have done with the EU have allowed NI to remain under the EU remit, imposed a customs border in our own territory, given the EU £40 billion, placed a slew of non tariff barriers on our exports, which even if complied with place additional administrative and direct costs on our companies, removed the UK as a transit and distribution hub and it’s only Monday.

Moving away from the EU is like Canada trying to move away from the US. Cosplaying as a Pacific Rim country is a political statement, not an economic one, and in 12 months we will still be a country based in Europe.

We’ve tried not joining, tried joining and now are trying ‘running away’. Good luck with that and commiserations to the industries and companies on their knees for voting to leave the EU secure in the knowledge that we will ‘retain the exact same benefits we had as members, indeed we can even negotiate better terms’.

 

[BobKowalski]

Nah, sack that, we've been answering the same sort of crap for 5 years,
and each time we do, it turns out that our perception of events is not only
proved correct, each and every one of yours isn't.

Then list your perception that were correct.

 

[mcfc1632]

It's Hancock turning down advice on using Merck so that Britain could jump the vaccine queue. I'm sure most Brits will approve.

This seems a bit of a biased view - perhaps you meant to say also that the reports are that the action taken was informed by concerns over the vaccine being produced in the US and the potential for Trump to block exports from the US as part of a an America first view

So when the scope of the facts are understood - I agree with you that most UK citizens would approve.

When you consider the concerns over Trump like behaviour of acting to control vaccine exports - I find it really quite interesting that it was the EU that acted in a manner that copies the Trump playbook

Surprised that you have not commented on that

 

[BobKowalski]

All fair positions to hold. The main points I would make on trade with RoW are twofold; firstly we were always hamstrung by EU tariffs when trying to negotiate anything which leaves them thinking why bother and secondly being in the EU has left us having inward looking trade policies and strategies. This doesn’t mean somehow being free of the “shackles” of EU federalism and protectionism is automatically going to lead us to sunny uplands but I don’t think we can really judge it yet (either way)

That then is a UK problem. You don’t sink the boat that is working nicely on the off chance a better boat may come along.

There are plenty of EU countries that trade very well with the RoW and enjoy the benefits of the Single Market. There are plenty of UK companies that do so as well. The idea you need to torch your position in the richest free trade bloc on the planet to enjoy better exports to India is risible.

There is no economic argument, the decision to leave the EU and to stay outside the Single Market is a political one, not an economic one.