We approved Pfizer and Astrazeneca a month before the EU, got the orders in and paid the full asking price while the EU were still haggling because they're so important.
When the enormity of the **** up by the EU finally dawned on them they tried to block exports of vaccines from the EU knowing that Astra produced a proportion of their vaccine there, even going so far as invoking article 16 to halt the movement of vaccines.
They backed down the following day, but not before their reputation on the world stage was in tatters.
Jean Claude Juncker said at the time:
Former European commission chief also says bloc has been too cautious in its procurement
www.theguardian.com
The EU has been overly cautious and budget conscious over Covid vaccines and should step back from waging a “stupid vaccine war” with Britain, the former European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said.
Juncker, who was replaced by Ursula von der Leyen in 2019, compared the EU’s approach to vaccination unfavourably with that of Britain where the rollout has been speedier.
He also said he was “not a fan” of the commission’s export authorisation mechanism under which officials have been empowered to prohibit shipments.
“This could create major reputation damage to the European Union, who used to be the world’s free trade champion,” Juncker told the BBC’s HARDtalk programme. “And so I don’t think that this is the right way to do it.
“I do think that we have to pull back from a vaccine war. I think that there is room for dialogue, for discussions, for developing arguments on both sides of the Channel. Nobody in Britain, nobody in Europe understands why we are witnessing, according to the news, a stupid vaccine war … We are not in war, and we are not enemies. We are allies.”
The commission updated its export authorisation mechanism on Wednesday to allow officials to block shipments to countries with a high level of vaccination coverage or those that restrict exports through law or in their contracts with suppliers.
