I bet Astrazeneca/Oxford is regretting offering to produce at cost due to the level of grief and politicking coming from EU capitals and the EU commission.
I mean, they don't have a leg to stand on, France that is. The UK supply chain started yield infrastructure build out in q1 2020 as paid for exclusively by the UK at the behest of the Jenner institute.<p>French politics is transference and blame to deflect blame from the leadership. Currently they promised 10m by end of march in total vaccinated. But in seeing that wouldn't be possible they jumped at the chance to stop issuing it so they can lean on that excuse
So the proximate issue appears to be lack of government approval for a new factory in the Netherlands. The contract issue has been done to death: the contracts the EU signed talk about best efforts. They don't actually seem to contain any penalties for "late" delivery.<p>AZ must surely see the EU as a colossal pain in the rear by now. If EU want to be treated as higher priority they're doing it all wrong because repeatedly abusing and pissing off the people who can make your vaccine is not a smart move. So far we have seen:<p>• EU leaders haggled for months over cost and didn't sign early contracts, despite AZ producing it not-for-profit.<p>• EU publicly claimed AZ were in violation of contract. AZ denied it. Then the Commission released the contract redacted, but they redacted it incorrectly which let people see the EU was lying and AZ was telling the truth.<p>• EU regulators reached same decision as UK regulators but much slower. At one point when asked why they still hadn't approved it, their answer was something like "AZ didn't contact us yet". Apparently proactively reaching out was not imaginable.<p>• Multiple EU leaders then claimed the vaccine didn't work, which turned out to be another lie.<p>• Then they briefly attempted to violate the supposedly sacrosanct and inviolable Northern Ireland protocol to stop AZ vaccine being exported <i>from</i> the EU (which didn't have any) <i>to</i> the UK (which had lots). Beyond making no sense at all this also showed the EU had been lying <i>again</i> for years during the Brexit negotiations, as they repeatedly claimed to be totally committed to NI peace process and would never accept anything that could lead to a border. All tossed out the window just weeks after the UK/EU transition period ended.<p>• EU repeatedly claimed to hate vaccine nationalism and find it totally unacceptable. Then they blocked export of AZ vaccine meant for Australia from Italy. Then they lied <i>again</i> and claimed the UK had blocked exports of vaccine materials to the EU, which had never happened.<p>• Now they started claiming the vaccine is dangerous, although according to AZ this is once again not supported by the data (similar to the claim it doesn't work). [1]<p>• And today they are <i>again</i> claiming AZ is not honouring the contracts, despite having totally failed to produce evidence this is true or even, as far as I know, start a court case related to this supposed violation.<p>By now the EU/AZ/UK relationship is a disaster zone. EU leaderships just continually obfuscate and make outright false statements about the vaccine and the people who make it. They're lucky AZ is still willing to work with them at all.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021/update-on-the-safety-of-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021...</a>
A bit fucking rich from France.<p>This is the classic EU attitude of absolute overwhelming entitlement.<p>They will never EVER admit that they fucked up.
I was told Brexit would crash the British economy. And yet now it's the EU begging the UK for a vaccine, the rate of GBP/USD is nearly at a 5 year high, and the UK has made serious progress vaccinating its population. Maybe the leavers were onto something?
suddenly HN is keen on defending big pharma. if this happened in the US I can't even imagine the outcry. also, it seems this thread is overrun by brexiteers looking for a win.<p>the EU signed a contract in good faith but AZ decided it's a big boy and will not honor it, based on some contract technicalities. risky bet.<p>US from the start blocked vaccine exports, putting "americans first". EU mistakenly allowed exports but because of AZ we can't have nice things happening. so now their exports are blocked and other countries will suffer: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-eu-vaccines-export-idUKKBN2AW1EK" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-eu-vac...</a>.
One minute they're suspending use of AstraZeneca, the next they're complaining they aren't getting enough deliveries of the vaccine they don't want to use.
This is straight out of those GI Joe voiceover videos.<p>Give us the vaccine! We’re suspending use of the vaccine!<p><a href="https://youtu.be/DXFdPTaCtkc" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/DXFdPTaCtkc</a>
The EU was super happy on the negociations on the vaccine prices with AstraZeneca. They claimed that the grouped buy was a major reason why they were able to get such a cheap price (Around $2.15 / dose). The US and UK pays around $3 to $4 / dose.<p>To compare, South Africa seems to be paying $5.25 to AstraZeneca. Pfizer vaccine costs $14.70/dose and Moderna $18. You can see why the EU is so dependent on AstraZeneca. It's all about injecting the cheapest vaccine as fast as possible.<p>Basically, the EU got a super heavy discount on the vaccine price. This also mean that they are last on the line for deliveries. In times of hardship, any sensible business will satisfy clients who pay a significant premium for their product before delivering the noisy client that negociates super harshly and can't stop complaining about your product.<p>Ursula von der Leyen needs to look herself in the mirror for the supposed "vaccine delivery issues". She willingly looked for the cheapest provider. When you imperatively need a product to be delivered and to work, you pay a premium for it, you don't look to reduce your costs as much as possible.
EU bureaucrats in disbelief that words on paper mean little in exigent times.<p>This is one of the big problems with the EU when it comes to geopolitical issues and security. Way too dependent on diplomacy and then always get surprised when other entities simply break the rules. I guess maybe the lack of foresight is because they are used to lording it over the EU member states (with a couple of exceptions) and then expect non-EU states to be equally complacent.<p>Instead of wasting time negotiating on price, they should have built manufacturing capacity within EU borders.