...I think the delay was unexpected; up to yesterday the Government were fully expecting to get ahead of their target, rather than take a hit but still achieve it.
Nonetheless, whilst there is an awful lot of smoke and mirrors around the various arrangements for procurement and manufacture of the vaccine, there is some evidence to support that there are valid reasons behind the delay (and notably, the UK is not throwing its toys out of the pram - which is interesting given rather a lack of diplomacy in other areas).
What is more worrying is the games the EU is playing. It is difficult to reconcile these as anything but a diversionary and blame-shifting tactic by an embattled EU administration (and some individual countries).
In any circumstances, it was almost nailed on that the review bodies would come out with the conclusions about the AZ vaccine as they did, so why put a hold on vaccine roll-out? (I know that, in some cases, this was the individual countries' initiative, but all against a backdrop set by the EU).
BTW, I don't, like many, make an assumption that this is deliberately targeted at the UK, but, as a European country now outside the EU, with a rather better record to date, the narrative rather fits the EU's purposes - it could be anybody.
It would appear that the next phase of the vaccine wars will be an attack on AZ for not delivering some of the EU demand from UK sources. This is a rather odd tack to take, since they don't appear to be using much of the stockpile they've already had delivered, and, as I've posted when this first raised its head, I don't believe the EU/AZ contract (as made public, albeit redacted) plays well against their stance.
My original view as posted is admirably summarised recently here:
www.druces.com/astrazeneca-eu-contract-what-it-really-says/
...with much the same conclusion. I would only add that, though he might be right about avoiding a Brexit bargaining chip, my own view is that, at a late stage they realised that, as drafted, the hundreds of millions of Euros being invested up-front could well build (new) production facilities in the UK (whereas they would obviously want new-build in the EU). In addition, AZ had at that time already committed all its early (UK) production to the UK. Hence it made sense for both parties to have all the initial EU doses manufactured in new plants, built in the EU. It looks very much like a cheap and nasty late amendment was made that met AZ's requirements, but might well not have been what the EU wanted (and is certainly not what they say it is).
If it went to law, I suspect the EU would be hung out to dry (there are other clauses in the agreement that tend to support the summarised interpretation). Of course, it won't, because I suspect AZ won't have big enough balls to take on a supranational trading bloc, (and the EU legal advisors must surely see what others plainly can) but the reality is, one can only interpret this as yet another diversionary tactic.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out, but it doesn't put the EU in a good light at all.
|
