The headquarter of the EU Commission, a.k.a. ‘Berlaymonster’

 

I do love scanning ‘Our MSM’ first thing in the morning – there are always some little gems to be found. In the olden days, readers looked at the papers on display at their local newsagents. Today, it’s all virtual but the effect is the same: looking at the headlines first demonstrates nicely what the News editors want to feed us peasants with.

It’s a funny thing, but this morning’s headlines on that scandal of the EU v AstraZeneca are mainly to be found in the broadsheets. Some of the proper Red Tops like The Mirror and The SUN are keeping away from this serious issue. Given the fact that the ‘vaccination race’ was one of their favourite issues this is a bit astonishing.

Another interesting point is that the world-famous national papers like Le Monde (France) or El Pais (Spain) seem to treat this issue as something only worthy of note somewhere inside. Italy has of course other concerns, namely to get a new government, somehow. However, Swedish newspapers are equally ‘unconcerned’, even though AstraZeneca is partly Swedish-owned. Only the conservative German paper ‘Die Welt’ has a report in second place in their online edition, but this is more a summary, a ‘he said – she said’ report. That’s all. 

I can’t help wondering if those editors and their readers are perhaps not as interested in this vaccination ‘race’ as the EU wants to make us believe. Perhaps though they know that this scandal is not least due to the interference of Merkel, Macron and Ms vdLeyen in the whole business of ordering and paying for vaccines ‘for all’.  Btw – the news that Hungary has ordered the Russian vaccine ‘Sputnik’ surfaced only briefly.

There’s one other point which I couldn’t help noticing: covid and the hope of freedom from lockdown by vaccination has turned some fierce Remain journalists into EU foes while some I’d classify as ‘fence sitters’ have found some harsh words to write about the EU. RemainCentral this morning has only two reports on this scandal, one of them a paean of how good ‘our’ vaccine research and production network has become. The other report reads as if The Times doesn’t want to be seen as too critical but cannot help but point out that the EU just might be in the wrong, in a most polite, subdued fashion.

Here’s another funny thing: the EU has threatened to stop the export of the Pfizer vaccine to the UK “because: AstraZeneca!!!” (paywalled link). This vaccine is produced in Belgium. One might respectfully ask how come that the ‘production bottlenecks’ for this vaccine, which were reported last week and which were blamed in EU member states for their slow-down of vaccinations, has now somehow become irrelevant, with Spain allegedly running out of the Pfizer vaccine by the weekend (paywalled link).

Is this why Brussels is so shrill about the AstraZeneca vaccine, using it as suitable deflection from their own shortcomings? Btw – their agency EMA still hasn’t approved the AZ vaccine. Let’s also remember that his fabulous EU agency only ‘approved’ the Pfizer vaccine after Christmas, well after we started vaccinating with it.

No matter – Brussels is using this deflection strategy regarding the AZ vaccine with the aim to ‘punish perfidious Albion’. Just see the starting paragraph in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s comment in last night’s DT:

“Brussels wants Britons to die so that Europeans should live. That is the implication of diverting up to 75 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to the EU market.” (paywalled link)

Crikey! That’s what I call ‘not mincing words’! Having picked up my jaw from the floor, I read on. AEP recapitulates the facts that Asrazeneca is making no profit from their vaccine and continues:

“Brussels got itself into its vaccine disaster by haggling over prices and trying to drive hard bargains on indemnity. It wasted three months before committing to AstraZeneca, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to mass-produce a viral vector vaccine. That is why the EU-based plants are not yet up to full efficiency.” (paywalled link)

AEP has more acerbic words regarding Brussels, writing that:

“The UK and the US invested seven times as much public money per capita to accelerate the vaccine breakthrough, acting with war-time energy while the Commission remained stuck in its bureaucratic box-ticking subculture, catering to the lowest common denominator of 27 states. If ever there was an example of  why Brussels should not be let anywhere near policies of real national sensitivity, this was it.” (paywalled link)

Just so – and here’s the Brexit reference:

“EuroIntelligence said the EU conducted vaccine talks in the same spirit that it conducted Brexit talks. “It tried to lock in a perceived short-term price advantage at the expense of everything else,” it said. Speed is everything in a pandemic. The Commission could not see the wood for the trees.” (paywalled link)

Meanwhile, the DT’s Mr Crisp reports what the EU Health Commissioner said. She’s a Cypriot politician:

“Stella Kyriakides […] said: “We reject the logic of first come, first served. That might work at the neighbourhood butchers but not on our contracts and not in our advanced purchase agreements.” (paywalled link)

Oh really? Isn’t this ‘Brussels First’ attitude akin to, oh horror, ‘vaccine nationalism’? Next, the Commissioner called on AZ ‘to publish its contract with the bloc for public scrutiny.’ (paywalled link). Hm. Why doesn’t Brussels publish it themselves? Might there be ‘nasties’ in it which support AZ? Now see what ‘a source’ said – this time a named source:

“Peter Liese, a German MEP on the European Parliament’s Health Committee and a member of Angela Merkel’s CDU party said: “I think the only consequence can be immediately stop the export of the Biotech [Pfizer vaccine], and then we are in the middle of a trade war. So the company and the UK better think twice. We have to show our weapons… we need to tell other companies in the world, if you treat the Europeans as second class you will suffer for this.” (paywalled link)

Oh dearie me! How humane is this: threatening with a trade war about vaccines which are needed everywhere? Painting the EU both as helpless victim of a nasty BigPharma company as well as a giant which will punish global companies? You couldn’t make it up! And then MS Kyriakides doubles down, first via a spokesman, then by herself:

“The European Commission’s chief spokesman said: “If UK plants are working better are we expecting UK plants to deliver doses to the EU? Yes we do.” AstraZeneca insisted its contract with the EU stated only that it would make its “best effort” to supply the doses ordered. Ms Kyriakides said: “Pharmaceutical companies, vaccine developers, have moral societal and contractual responsibilities which they need to uphold. The view that the company is not obliged to deliver because we signed a best effort agreement is neither correct nor is it acceptable.” (paywalled link)

So the EU did sign this contract – and now wants to break it? The DM has a relevant comment on the ‘best effort’ clause which Brussels now deems to be ‘morally unacceptable’:

“The term ‘best effort’ is a well-known piece of legal language, which is used when writing up contracts in exceptional circumstances such as the pandemic. It’s there precisely to cover emergency situations when products are still in development and allows for unforeseen problems with manufacturing or distribution to crop up. You can be sure Astra’s lawyers will have anticipated such hiccups, and that similar clauses will be in all their vaccine contracts.” (link) 

Ms Kyriakides’ final argument, that “the 27 European union member states are united that AstraZeneca needs to deliver on its commitments in our agreements.” (paywalled link) doesn’t hold water, not only because AZ isn’t stopping deliveries but also because of the manifest disinterest in this scandal displayed by major EU newspapers.

So far, AZ is standing firm, but they’re coming under huge pressure because the EU is a much larger pharma market that the UK: “the fear is that eventually it will yield to EU demands and redirect supply, now or in the future, but the firm insists it has no intention of doing so.” (paywalled link). Well, we’ll have to wait and see – but there’s one other aspect to this ‘made in Brussels’ vaccine scandal. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard points out:

“The EU’s vaccination debacle has delayed Europe’s social reopening and economic recovery by three months, with all the consequences that this will have for sovereign debt ratios, small firm solvency, and labour hysteresis.It is one reason – though not the only one – why the International Monetary Fund thinks the region will be left behind as the US and China roar back this year.  It is a Sino-American G2 world from now on. The pandemic has brought forward Europe’s definitive relegation from the top league.” (paywalled link)

A scary outlook, to be sure. It remains to be seen how we will fare in that new, post-covid world – provided there is one. Meanwhile let’s hope that neither AZ nor our PM will cave in to the EU and that even more Remainers will recognise that Brussels is destroying their expectations of a post-lockdown freedom – and act accordingly. 

Alright, this comes under ‘hope springs eternal’, but without hope we might as well order our shrouds already …

 

KBO!

 

Photo by TPCOM

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