UK says it expects no vaccine interruption from EU; Brussels admits Irish 'blunder'

[rooster59]

UK says it expects no vaccine interruption from EU; Brussels admits Irish 'blunder'

By John Chalmers and Andrew MacAskill

 

FILE PHOTO: A 'No Hard Border' poster is seen below a road sign on the Irish side of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland near Bridgend, Ireland October 16, 2019. Picture taken October 16, 2019. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo

 

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - EU officials confessed on Saturday to a "blunder" in invoking Northern Ireland Brexit emergency powers during a showdown with Britain over vaccines, and London said it expected its supply of COVID-19 shots would not be interrupted.

 

The European Union has fallen far behind Britain and the United States in the race to vaccinate its public. It announced on Friday it would impose export controls on vaccines, widely seen as a threat to prevent doses from being sent to Britain.

 

But it was forced to reverse part of the announcement within hours, after both Britain and Ireland complained about plans to impose emergency export controls for vaccines across the land border between Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland.

 

"They have recognised they have made a mistake and I believe we can now concentrate on making sure that our vaccine programme is successful," Michael Gove, a senior British cabinet minister told Sky News.

 

Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab tweeted: "I was reassured the EU has no desire to block suppliers fulfilling contracts for vaccine distribution to the UK."

 

"The world is watching and it is only through international collaboration that we will beat this pandemic."

 

'SIMPLY AND PLAINLY A BLUNDER'

 

EU officials acknowledged that the decision to invoke emergency powers to control trade across the Northern Irish border had been a mistake. Preventing controls at the border was the central issue in five years of Brexit negotiations.

 

"It's a lot better to realise early on that something might be a problem and to change it, than to stick to your guns and dig a hole for yourself," an EU official said on Saturday.

 

"As soon as it became apparent that there would be a political difficulty and sensitivity there, in particular on the Irish and Northern Irish side, we decided to take it out."

 

Another EU official called the drama "simply and plainly a blunder".

 

Politicians in the EU are under intense pressure to explain why their countries have managed just a fraction of the vaccinations achieved in Britain, which left the single market four weeks ago.

 

EU officials were furious earlier this month when British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca announced that most of the vaccine doses it had promised to deliver to the EU by March would be delayed because of production problems in Belgium.

 

AstraZeneca has been making millions of doses in Britain, but it told the EU it could not divert any to the continent until it fulfils a contract with London. Meanwhile, Britain has been importing EU-made doses of a separate vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.

 

The EU announced regulations on Friday to control exports of vaccines, widely seen as an implicit threat to block Pfizer shipments to Britain unless London shared its AstraZeneca shots.

 

But imposing restrictions on the Northern Irish border was a bridge too far, after five years of Brexit negotiations to keep it open. The issue is central to a 1998 peace deal that ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland.

 

Ireland's European Affairs Minister, Thomas Byrne, said Dublin had not been consulted on the move.

 

"This type of provision is standard in trade agreements but in the Northern Ireland situation, it obviously has a different political resonance and it's perhaps the case that this wasn't fully appreciated by the drafters," he told Newstalk radio.

 

"Clearly a mistake was made," Byrne said. (This story corrects date of Northern Ireland peace deal to 1998 from 1988)

 

(Additional reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Editing by Peter Graff)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-31

 

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[transam]

Take note "remainers", your U.S. of G.........

 

Take note "leavers", one reason you voted to leave, U.S. of G.........

[canopus1969]

No blunder, just the EU showing its real colours  ????

[sungod]

47 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

"It's a lot better to realise early on that something might be a problem and to change it, than to stick to your guns and dig a hole for yourself," an EU official said on Saturday.

Sensible, however most of our remainers on here would call changing tact to evolving threats a U turn.

[Loiner]

This ‘EU Vaccines Blunder’ is just the first of many they will have to admit. Could next to be fixed result in “The Great Ham Sarnie EU-Turn’?

[onebir]

6 hours ago, transam said:

Take note "remainers", your U.S. of G.........

 

Take note "leavers", one reason you voted to leave, U.S. of G.........

Oldie but goodie:

Quote

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

 

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

 

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

 

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

 

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

 

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

 

By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

 

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

 

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

 

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

 

[WHansen]

Babies throwing their toys out of the pram.

The EU is simply a poisonous club.
Watch the other members start the 'see you later' movement in due course.

[BusyB]

3 hours ago, Loiner said:

This ‘EU Vaccines Blunder’ is just the first of many they will have to admit. Could next to be fixed result in “The Great Ham Sarnie EU-Turn’?

 

Not a cat's chance ...

[BusyB]

I can only post here what I did in a mail to someone else:

 

"I make no denials about it: I am 100% card carrying, triple-A rated 1st generation British European, and as such you can imagine a 100% remainer.

But no doubt, the EU has made at least 2 mistakes here: a watery contract, a lack of awareness, and a right bloody dog's dinner of Art. 16.

Weyand was the obvious candidate for Commission President, but German politics got in the way I'm sad to say, that as a 100% happy German citizen as well.

OK, who's perfect? Yes we make mistakes, yes the EU is work in progress. And yes, I'd still rather be here than over there ;D"

 

I have had a far better life here than I could ever have had in UK - and I have a lifetime of experience also working with Brits and Brit companies to back that assessment up. "English management" is not a derogatory term (outside world beating UK of course)  for nothing. I will also get a far better pension even though I've also kept up my NI contributions (note and ponder that word) and thus have a direct comparison here as well.

 

And even though that is my country of birth, my family is still there, and that I still, quite deliberately hold UK citizenship, I got no vote.

 

It's what happens in any country when you hand power to the brown shirts. They always leave an utter disaster behind.

 

(142000t of food rotting - fish industry dead, 60% of trucks back to EU empty, the g o v e r n m e n t advising UK companies to set up in the EU! And it's still only January ... ROFLMBO)

Edited January 31, 2021 by BusyB
Spelling correction

[Poet]

9 hours ago, rooster59 said:

(This story corrects date of Northern Ireland peace deal to 1998 from 1988)

To be fair, a peace deal could and should have been reached in 1978.

The EU's focus on the border during Brexit negotiations was never anything more than a stick to hit the UK with. This latest overreach shows how little the EU elites actually care about the people of Ireland (on either of the border).

They will weaponize the border with Scotland in exactly the same way after independence there.

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by Poet

[JonnyF]

The EU never cared about the Irish or the border. It was all a negotiating tactic to screw the British during Brexit negotiations.

 

This simply proves it, again. 

 

The only people surprised by this haven't been paying attention. 

 

I guess that's what happens when Von Der Leyen is the only name that can be elected, sorry I mean selected. Citizens of the EU had no say in the matter yet suffer from her incompetence. 

 

Time for the great European nations to grow a pair and stand up for themselves against the EU.

[Loiner]

5 hours ago, BusyB said:

 

 

I have had a far better life here than I could ever have had in UK - and I have a lifetime of experience also working with Brits and Brit companies to back that assessment up. "English management" is not a derogatory term (outside world beating UK of course)  for nothing.

 

But still feel entitled to comment on the best interests of the real Brits, from the position of being a pseudo-euro, but claiming to be 100% British. A runaway slagging off the U.K. from afar sounds more like some serious sour grapes. 

[vogie]

A word of warning to all Brexiteers, the BBC has actually said something very negative about the EU, infact some might call it a scathing attack.

 

[herfiehandbag]

35 minutes ago, vogie said:

A word of warning to all Brexiteers, the BBC has actually said something very negative about the EU, infact some might call it a scathing attack.

 

Haha - there is a reason why the BBC calls it "Outside Source"! None of the BBC chosen ones would want to put their names to such heresy!

 

The Island Monkeys have rather left egg on certain faces though!

[RayC]

15 hours ago, vogie said:

A word of warning to all Brexiteers, the BBC has actually said something very negative about the EU, infact some might call it a scathing attack.

 

 

Imo an excellent piece of journalism.

 

However, surely yet another example of factually correct, unbiased reporting by the BBC is bad news (no pun intended) for you, Vogie, as it's one less party to blame?????????

[JonnyF]

16 hours ago, vogie said:

A word of warning to all Brexiteers, the BBC has actually said something very negative about the EU, infact some might call it a scathing attack.

 

 

Amazing and good to see. Maybe they are finally getting the message after so many people stopped paying the licence fee due to their Pro EU propaganda.

 

 

 

Also an interesting choice of words from Tiede in that report. "The island" as he calls it never belonged to the EU. We were simply an unhappy member. That attitude explains a lot of the arrogance displayed by the EU since we voted to leave their corrupt, increasingly inept club.