RogUe State: the EU threatens London to block the export of vaccines, but AstraZeneca doesn’t even use it
Yesterday the leader of the first world power and the spokesperson for a supranational project in crisis were the protagonists of a slide in favor of cameras. For American President Joe Biden it was a gaffe: having given the murderer to Russian President Putin, causing a useless diplomatic crisis, is not the prelude to a policy . The relations of the new US administration with Russia will indeed be more tense (more in form than in substance), when on the contrary Washington should try to find a new balance with Moscow, if only to avoid pushing it into the arms of Beijing. But Biden's remains a gaffe. A gaffe that denotes a climate, no more. And who knows what he thinks of Xi Jinping, with whom he has conversed amiably several times for hours. To be consistent with what his State Department believes is happening in Xinjiang, he should call it a genocide.
On the other hand, that of the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen was not a gaffe, but the presentation of a policy . And we really don't know whether to worry or bury her with laughter. President Von der Leyen has returned to threaten to block exports of doses of the anti- Covid vaccine produced in the EU to those countries that do not guarantee "reciprocity", that is, that do not allow the doses produced on their territory to reach the Union.
Reciprocity: "If the situation does not change we will have to reflect on how to make exports to vaccine producing countries dependent on their opening". And proportionality: "We will also consider whether exports to countries with higher vaccination rates than ours are proportionate".
Frankly delusional statements: instead of asking why there are countries that have higher vaccination rates than the EU, it is intended to condition exports to a principle of proportionality, enunciated unilaterally, for which countries that have secured more doses, or that simply they are faster than us to administer them, they would have to wait for the vaccination campaign in Europe to take off, or rather to start, before receiving more. Absurd.
To "ensure that Europe has its fair share" of doses, the Commission is ready to "use every possible tool". "All the options are on the table, I'm not ruling out any." And here the reference, expressly cited a few days ago by the President of the European Council Michel, is Article 122 of the Treaty, which provides for emergency measures “if serious difficulties arise in the supply of certain products”. A clause taken only during the oil crisis of the 1970s (and in fact the article specifies "in particular in the energy sector"), which according to Brussels can come to include the de facto control of the production and distribution of scarce products . But that Article 122 authorizes the requisition of private property, as if we were at war, seems to be a stretch, especially since the EU was not sovereign.
But who did Ursula have it with? At the request of reporters, he immediately made it clear that he was not angry with the United States, despite the Biden administration maintaining the ban on the export of vaccines. "With the US there is reciprocity", he explained, "there is no export from the US to the EU and the EU does not export to the US".
Obviously he was angry with London, even if there is no ban on the export of vaccines. It is true that two manufacturing plants in the United Kingdom are mentioned in the EU contract with AstraZeneca . And it is true that AZ has one of its production centers in Belgium, therefore in the Union.
But that's the point. Until proven otherwise, we are neither in the Soviet Union nor in a self-sufficient regime. The AZ factory in Belgium does not belong to the European Commission, just as every good that is produced on its territory does not belong to the European Union. Like any other private company, AZ supplies its customers as agreed. If a customer considers himself damaged, if he considers the counterpart in default, he can assert his reasons in the appropriate legal offices, he cannot go to the factory and block the goods purchased by other customers. The "fair share" of doses is the one that the EU has managed to obtain due to its contracts. If he made the wrong strategy or purchases, and even if he were the victim of a scam, he cannot pretend to “rob” or bully other countries. In short: it is with AstraZeneca , if anything, that it has to blame, not with the London government.
"We need some explanation, because the world is watching," British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab commented, adding that the announcement in Brussels took his government by surprise. "All of us, even with our European friends, said during the pandemic that it would be wrong to limit or interfere with legally contracted supplies."
Exactly, legally contracted supplies. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly reiterated before the House of Commons that there is no block on the export of vaccines to the EU. To determine the priorities in the deliveries of the pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca in this case, are the commercial contracts in place. Again: if Brussels finds AZ in default, it should sue her, not blame her client and abuse state power with embargo measures.
What they insist on not admitting in Brussels is that they have made mistakes in the contracts and that they have made a mistake in the overall strategy on vaccines.
The EU and individual member states have not made efforts to develop and manufacture vaccines comparable to those of the United States and the United Kingdom, to give examples we know best. On the contrary, they went to savings on the most precious and strategic asset. They naively thought that once they were ready it would be enough to buy the necessary doses at the minimum price, centralizing purchases in Brussels, underestimating the frenzied race that would have been global for the only weapon that allows you to quickly exit the health emergency and therefore restart the economy.
The United States and the United Kingdom have invested billions in development and production by agreeing with some national pharmaceutical companies, Israel has instead decided to buy the doses at double the price and give Pfizer the data of the vaccination campaign.
As attorney Steven Barrett brilliantly observed in the Spectator , “These countries got to the restaurant first and ordered their meal first. The EU arrived late. The former went further, they promised not only to buy the vaccine, but also to pay for its development. Not only did they order the food, they also helped pay for the kitchen ”. The EU ordered late, by choice, but saved a lot of money. You can blame the restaurateur for not being honest about waiting times, but not the customers who arrived earlier and paid more.
In short, everyone has put their own strategy into play, the EU has simply thought of buying the doses at the lowest price and not even the few national strategies have been successful: the vaccine of the German Curevac is late, while that of the French Sanofi seems is shipwrecked.
The decision to use Article 122 rests with the Council, ie the leaders of the Member States, on a proposal from the Commission, so it is essentially political. But it would be unjustified, since despite the delays in the delivery of AstraZeneca doses, but also of Pfizer , to date there is no shortage of vaccines, the major EU countries are unable to administer even the doses received (out of 14.8 million doses AZ, half are still waiting).
As the deputy of the Lega Claudio Borghi observed, "no assumption of responsibility" by Von der Leyen for the clamorous mistakes made, but on the contrary "a concentration of arrogance and incompetence", the same that we met with the couple in Italy Conte-Gualtieri.
In Brussels they no longer know what to invent to unload responsibility for the vaccine disaster, but they should start looking around… and very close, for example to those countries – Germany in the lead – which have decided to suspend the administration of AstraZeneca .
Yes, because the tragicomic aspect of yesterday's press conference is that President Von der Leyen threatens to block the export of vaccines to the United Kingdom by complaining about the delay in deliveries of a vaccine, AstraZeneca , which is currently suspended in 15 EU countries, including the four largest (Germany, France, Italy and Spain). And if Paris and Rome have already said that they are ready to resume the administration of AZ immediately after the pronouncement of the EMA expected by today, the recovery is not at all obvious in Germany. In short, Von der Leyen could have at least chosen another week for her bellicose announcement: complaining of not receiving the due doses of a vaccine currently suspended in most Member States risks ridiculing the institution she leads. If not seriousness, in Brussels at least they have dignity (their own) at heart.
The post RogUe State: the EU threatens London to block vaccine exports, but AstraZeneca doesn't even use it appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/rogue-state-lue-minaccia-di-bloccare-lexport-di-vaccini-verso-il-regno-unito-ma-astrazeneca-nemmeno-lo-usa/ on Thu, 18 Mar 2021 04:59:00 +0000.