Posted on 01/30/2021 8:37:58 PM PST by nickcarraway
The European Union recognised it "made a mistake" in triggering an emergency provision in the Brexit deal to control Covid vaccine exports, the Cabinet Office minister has said.
Michael Gove said he was "confident" of the UK's vaccine supply and said its programme would continue as planned.
He said the UK was "on track" to deliver 15 million jabs by 15 February.
It comes after the EU reversed a decision which could have seen checks at the Irish border amid a vaccine row.
Mr Gove said he had spoken with European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič and both had agreed "we need a reset" and to put the people of Northern Ireland first.
SNIP
On Friday, the EU said it would trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol - which allows the EU and UK to choose to suspend any aspects they consider are causing "economic, societal or environmental difficulties" - before later reversing the decision following condemnation from London, Dublin and Belfast.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Was the EU trying to limit British exports of vaccine?
The EU was trying to redirect AstraZeneca vaccines made in Belgium to Germany, France and the EU-27.
The EU signed contracts with AZ 3 months after the UK did.
And only recently approved the AZ vaccine for distributing.
AZ yield on the production of Covid vaccine is ~60% less than estimated. It will take them longer to fulfill their UK orders and longer to start filling their EU orders.
This was really the EC (European Commission), an unelected star chamber, making a decision which would never sit well with any of the 27 EU states, let alone the UK.
They were basically trying to cover up their ineptitude in negotiating purchase orders for a vaccine, trying to publicly humiliate the manufacturer about likely shortfalls in supplies, before the vaccine was even legal to use in the 27 EU states. The EC suggested that vaccine manufactured in the UK (against a UK purchase order signed 3 months before the EU’s) should go directly to the EU, bypassing the UK, largely because manufacturing facilities in Belgium and Netherlands were not up to speed. A further elephant in the EC room of horrors was the abject failure of France to delivery a promised vaccine to save the EU.
Added to that they published a redacted copy of the confidential purchase contract and didn’t fully redact important clauses making them look ever more stupid.
They then invoked a clause in the Brexit agreement which within minutes had pretty much everyone in the UK, Ireland and beyond up in arms.
Why would anyone trust the EC and by extension the EU, ever again?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.