[Ulrich2]

Please note that the EU is the _only_ Western country that is currently exporting vaccines to the world. It is the US + UK that are blocking all exports. Even Canada gets its vaccines from the EU, since the US is not sending them any.

So yes, clearly the EU has made mistakes (fully agree with the 1st part of your post), but they had good intentions and it is not as bad as you make it sound.

[brigandish]

> It is the US + UK that are blocking all exports

No. The UK government publishes a list of medicines blocked for export[1] and the vaccine isn’t on the list. The EU is solely to blame for being at the back of the queue and are the only state I know of to threaten blocking exports.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[blub]

Not much difference between using 100% of the locally produced doses locally and blocking it for export. Let's rephrase the question: which countries are the US and UK currently exporting vaccine to and in which quantities?

[brigandish]

There’s a huge difference.

If you buy up all a local farmer’s apples for your cider business that is not protectionism. If you arrange for him to effectively become your sole supplier during your busy period that is not protectionism. It’s free trade, that well known opposite.

Hard enough to defend the EU’s protectionism and disorganisation when it’s just food, didn’t think I’d see anyone lining up to do it over vaccines.

[blub]

That's literally apples and vaccines. In the future you might as well not bother with such pointless digressions.

Back on topic: recently read on CNN that the UK contract's exactly the same as the EU one (best effort) and it was signed later than the EU one even if it was negotiated earlier.

If we combine that with the fact that the UK is not exporting any vaccine and the EU is, including to the UK, it seems to me that the EU was right to be upset with AZ and put pressure on them.

The UK is being selfish and trying to make the EU look like the bad guy.

[brigandish]

If you're unwilling to be civil and also unwilling to engage in the argument presented to you - even when made clear via analogy - then I'm not sure why you think anyone will bother to listen to you.

> it seems to me that

You've busted that flush.

[blub]

The UK is currently not exporting vaccines and there are no countries which are receiving vaccines from the UK.

This is what OP claimed and there is only one argument that can be made against that: a list of countries where the UK or the US is exporting vaccines. By now it should be clear to anyone reading this far that you can't provide that.

[smorephism]

Every country they promised to, which is the core of the matter.

It's one thing to be upfront from the start about how you're going to independently produce vaccine for yourself first, ensuring nobody plans on receiving your production.

It's another entirely to promise to export and then later threaten to hold back.

[fennecfoxen]

> It's one thing to be upfront from the start about how you're going to independently produce vaccine for yourself first

It's not even that, it's being up front about paying all the local manufacturers to make vaccines for you first.

[blub]

AZ was/is shipping vaccine from the EU to the UK. That's what the EU considered stopping.

[brigandish]

The EU's local manufacturers were supplying non-locally because they had a contract to do that and the EU hadn't set up such a contract, or a contract at all. Usually, if you've not got a contract then you don't get a say, and usually, if other people set up a contract first, they get supplied first, which is why the EU tried to use other means, and because that jeopardises the most fundamental part of all trade - contracts - everyone condemned them. Quite rightly.

Perhaps you were referring to something else?

[blub]

Ok, and what is the list of those countries and the quantities that they're getting?

Because from your second sentence it read like an awfully short list if nobody's expecting on receiving vaccine.