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The official line from these companies always seems to be that they were able to ramp up production to make the vaccines for the UK because the UK committed to

The official line from these companies always seems to be that they were able to ramp up production to make the vaccines for the UK because the UK committed to its order signficantly earlier than the EU. (I've never seen this next bit said explicitly, but the subtext, as I read it, is that the EU was holding out for a better price.) Of course I don't know the accuracy of such statements. But if that is true, you could certainly argue it would unfair that the EU should benefit from production capacity that only exists because of commitments made by the UK, and the location of the factories is fairly irrelevant to that. You could counter argue that I am mistakenly treating the "EU" and "UK" as a single individual person each who deserves to suffer the consequences of their actions, when in fact the people suffering are individual citizens who had almost no control over the negotiation process. But, on the flip side, if companies cannot rely on agreements made during difficult negotiations to be honoured then it will be harder to secure such agreements in future.

turbinerneiter 6y ago
What makes this so painful for me is that person responsible, the comission president von der Leyen, was not actually elected by the people. We need some massive reforms and rebuilding after this. There already was a lot of EU scepticism, and instead of taking this opportunity to shine, they completely squandered it and destroyed trust.
- iso1210 6y ago
  Commission president was decided by the heads of each democratically elected government - so Merkel, Sanchez, Johnson, Macron etc. Just like in the UK where the PM is elected by each democratically elected MP
  - turbinerneiter 6y ago
    They promised us that the candidate of the strongest party will get the job.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      Isn't the EVP the strongest block in the EU parliament right now?
      - turbinerneiter 6y ago
        Yes, but the candidate was Weber. Von der Leyen didn't even run for parliament. It was all a big deuce dropped on the parliament, really. The parliament is the only directly elected body in the EU, and the nations governments hate the idea that it could gain any kind of real power.
        hef19898 6y ago
        The German chancellor is elected the same way. There is nothing preventing a candidate change after the election, plus there is no way to tell which coalition will actually form. And still almost nobody would argue that the German federal government isn't democratically legitimized.
        turbinerneiter 6y ago
        I mean why do all of you just keep ignoring what I'm saying? We were promised that the candidate of the winning party would get the job! All parties in the election agreed to that. We had debates between the candidates rooted on that promise. The whole election was based on that. The EU has serious problems with democratic legitimacy, it has serious problems with Trust, and yet people defend those moves because they are technically legal. The voters were told one thing and they got another thing. And then the EU does an about-face and wonders why there is so many people distrusting it. Do you want the EU to succeed or not? If you want it to succeed, like I do, we have to call out the issues and fix them, instead of defending broken things because we still believe in the whole. The EU will never reach its potential if we don't mature it's political system and give the people some direct, visible control.
        intricatedetail 6y ago
  - timthorn 6y ago
    > Just like in the UK where the PM is elected by each democratically elected MP That's not the case. The PM is appointed by the Monarch, who will almost always choose the leader of the party able to command a majority in the House of Commons. That leader will be chosen according to the rules of their party. Boris Johnson won an election where all eligible members of the Conservative Party had a vote; it is the case that the shortlist of two was decided by MPs. The PM is also a regular MP and has to be elected by their local constituency voters.
    - iso1210 6y ago
      Technically of course, however the monarch is "advised" by the previous prime minster, who by convention tells her the person who can command confidence the house, which is the person who will get 50%+1 of the votes. If we're being technical the PM does not have to be an elected MP, and can be from the house of lords.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- andrepd 6y ago
  The thing most people don't realise is that the EU is almost completely undemocratic, which is pretty crazy when you think about it for a minute. On the other hand it's also no surprise considering how it evolved: a producer's cartel for the coal and steel, and later agricultural, industries. It's a miracle it even works so well as it does.
- theaeolist 6y ago
  This is not by some accident of history. It is a deliberate decision of euro-skeptic countries to avoid turning the EU into a superstate. It is usually the same countries who then go to complain about the "democratic deficit" of the EU institutions. I went through the Brexit referendum debates and the hypocrisy was rank.
  - turbinerneiter 6y ago
    Exactly. This is one the first things we have to fix. The relationship between the nations government and the EU is in parts absurd.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      What’s absurd about it?
      - turbinerneiter 6y ago
        I.e. national governments using EU to pass legislation, which they then oppose locally, claiming the evil EU is forcing it upon them against their will. Generally, blaming all bad things on the EU and acting like it's a foreign power whenever it servers their needs, obfuscating the the national governments are the ones with most power over EU decisions.
        makomk 6y ago
        The trouble is that none of the parties involved have any incentive to fix this. The national governments certainly don't, because it gives them a convenient way to pass laws they don't like, and the EU doesn't either because it both gives the EU more power and makes national governments beholden to them. For all the talk some populist politicians make about leaving the EU, it's not like they actually would because that would mean giving up their power to pass laws without that inconvenient democratic accountability. I reckon this was a major reason Brexit went the way it did. Supporters of the EU liked to point to the fact that actually, our government was behind a lot of the unpopular EU actions to argue that Brexit supporters had been tricked into wanting to leave the EU. What they didn't get was how completely unconvincing an argument that is. The politicians who were busy undermining and blocking any attempt to leave the EU also used it as a way to pass laws that the people they represent didn't want, shielding themselves from any kind of accountability to the general populace, and that was meant to make everyone fall in line behind them and want to remain in the EU? Ridiculous.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  The simple reform is to not have EU handle vaccine procurement anymore.
  - turbinerneiter 6y ago
    Valid opinion, but I disagree.
    - BurningFrog 6y ago
      Fair disagreement!
  - jopsen 6y ago
    I'm sure that would work out fine for the wealthy EU countries. Though the small countries might not have the same leverage. But in the long run, wouldn't it be bad for all of us, if it takes eastern European countries a lot longer to reopen?
    - BurningFrog 6y ago
      This whole topic is about how the EU screwed up the whole thing. It would be hard for individual countries to do any worse. Tiny Israel did vastly better that the EU, so the size of the EU clearly didn't help.
      - vkou 6y ago
        > It would be hard for individual countries to do any worse. It would be pretty easy for any individual countries that don't actually produce vaccines to do worse. Just look at Canada, for instance. It's a rich country that hoarded vaccine pre-orders (Enough to vaccinate its population three times over), and what was the result? A lower vaccination rate than the EU. That's because Canada does not control any part of the R&D or manufacturing process, so its orders got pushed to the back of the line. And neither do most of the countries in the EU. What makes you think Slovakia or Greece, or Italy are going to be any better off? What makes you think that if vaccine procurement were up to each individual country, that any of those countries would see a single dose before, say, Belgium reached 100% vaccination?
- reddotX 6y ago
  yawn.. why do you brexiteers even care about EU anymore? The European Commission isn't directly elected by citizens in the EU but the President of the Commission needs to be approved by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who are elected by voters from member states. MEPs also vote on whether to approve Commissioners who are nominated by governments of member states. In no country citizens directly elect the government. EU commission EU's government. The commission president is equivalent with a PM
  - turbinerneiter 6y ago
    I'm Austrian and pro EU. We were promised that the candidate of the strongest party in the parliament election will get the job. Every time this comes up people explain to me again what I already know, and never ever they seem to remember what the people were promised before the election.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
      That system was propagated by the two “Spitzenkandidaten” themselves. It’s not a law nor did the national governments sign up for it. So yes, it was a bit of deception, created as part of of a fight between institutions. Just about nobody decided their vote based on these candidates, anyway.
      - turbinerneiter 6y ago
        If nothing that is being promised during an election actually matters, we really don't have to keep pretending like this is a democracy.
- rayiner 6y ago
  It sounds like the EU needs deconstruction not more construction. Go back to a free trade zone, not a super government.
  - ThalesX 6y ago
    I would love for the EU to even give glimpses of a super government; what I see is fractal bureaucracy. Every crysis that seems to come up, it's a show of people in suits, negociating and coming up with plans and commisions and big worded manifests, and coming up with solutions sometimes decades after the initial spark. I come from Central Eastern Europe i.e. the poor people of the great EU. Our government is incompetent, corrupt, all the stereotypical attributes, and somehow, the most incompetent, lazy and corrupt end up Europoliticians (note: this is not a rule, there are exceptions). It's almost like a status symbol of when you beat the system; you get a nice cozy place where you do nothing. I am highly skeptical that we are alone in this. Then, from a ground level, as someone that wants to love the European Union and can see the great economic benefits it brought us since joining, I can't help but stare in awe as all the brain gets drained from my country. Every single capable person has to decide whether they want to stay here and basically fight for scraps or go to the west where they get money they couldn't dream of here. Sorry for the rant, your mention of a super government made me irrationaly angry at something I can't have, or don't want in its current form, and your deconstruction point is very much aligned with what I think needs to happen' currently.
    - nirv 6y ago
      Visa and borders won't stop capable people from migrating out of the country that you are amusingly planning to fix by isolation. It didn't before you joined the bloc, it won't after you "deconstruct the EU" — and you know it well. As long as you have precisely pinpointed the issue with supplying EP with incompetent MEPs (a common problem among most members of the bloc today, arguably including the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen), you've resorted to a completely destructive resolution of deconstructing the EU. As a punishment for the failures of your homeland, I suppose? "Bad EU did it, not our fault" is such a common trope among local politicians (hallo Österreich[1] from the latest news) and some citizens. The solution is in fixing your domestic politics, not dragging your capable citizens and fellow European neighbors down. It's solely thanks to the European Union's common approach[2] that the small/poor members of the bloc have truly equal access to vaccines. Otherwise small countries would have never been able to outbid rich Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and other power states on the free market. As you understand, there are no benefits for Germany, France et al. in this collective decision, they're literally paying with the lives of their citizens for the idea of the EU. A little gratitude. By being in the same boat, we will together overcome pandemic, poverty and political incompetence. You're free to disagree, just don't pretend that your local brexit will go swimmingly — it isn't rosy even for such a developed country as the UK. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-on-official-for-vaccination-missteps/ https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-o... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralised-eu-approach_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralis...
- _pferreir_ 6y ago
  > What makes this so painful for me is that person responsible, the comission president von der Leyen, was not actually elected by the people. Forgive me for picking on this, but I see it regularly come up whenever the deficit of democracy in the EU is discussed and I completely disagree with that assessment. The President of the US is not elected by "the people". The PMs of most countries are invited to form a government by the head of state, not directly by the people. This is a common feature in many democracies, executive roles are not directly elected and are instead picked based on support by parliamentary majorities. The President of the European Commission is elected by the Parliament, which is itself elected directly by the people of the EU. I see absolutely no problem there. There are other things which deserve more attention, like the disproportionate amount of power the Council has vis a vis the Commission and the Parliament.
  - turbinerneiter 6y ago
    Thanks for being the 1000 person to explain this to me. They promised before the election that the candidate of the strongest party would get the job. The whole plan was to strengthen the parliament, and the whole promise was broken after the election, _because_ the council wanted to make sure the parliament and commission are kept weak. Whenever I have this discussion people for some reasons assume I don't know even the most basic mechanics of the system I critize. And the same people always conveniently forget what we were promised during the election campaign. All parties agreed to make the candidate of the strongest party after the election the commission president. They all promised that. Von der Leyen is the council and national governments taking a dump on the parliament. And it didn stop there! During the backroom deals that lead to this, the parliament negotiated that they will only play along if they finally get more power. Fast forward a couple of months and they got stiffed and insulted again. The brexit deal i.e. was an affront to parliament, because they didn't even get to vote it on it. The vaccine deals were kept secret from them. And on and on and on. The only directly elected body in the EU is constantly being disrespected. You act like these are separate problems, but the fact that we got von der Leyen, who didn't even run in the election, IS THE SAME thing as the problem of Power of council vs. Commission vs. Parliament. The later caused the former. (Sorry for the tone, I got angry, but not at you. Please read it in mickey mouse voice to take the edge off.)
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  Boris Johnson wasn’t elected directly (as prime minister), either. Nor Merkel. Or, for that matter, Biden.
albertop 6y ago
A good summary of EU problems is described [1]. Washington and London understood that crucial to mass procurement was throwing large amounts of R&D money at many companies in hopes some would work. Brussels focused on haggling down the cost per dose. Europeans pay a few dollars less per dose but ended near the back of the shipment line. [1] http://archive.is/M0bjW http://archive.is/M0bjW
- hef19898 6y ago
  Which is too simplistic. The UK, the US and the EU depend on their local manufacturing capacity. That capacity is limited, regardless initial delivery schedules were sufficient for herd immunity in the EU around June/July with a significant surplus in Q3/4. That surplus was slated to be shared with developing countries. Solid plan, solid procurement strategy. But after that procurement, nothing. No coordination of national campaigns with manufacturers, no planning on local and regional level, no operational procurement plan. And the list goes on.
  - albertop 6y ago
    So why the UK/US numbers are way ahead of EU?
    - mpweiher 6y ago
      Because around half the EU production is exported whereas until a few days ago exactly 0% of the US and UK production were. "Until a few days ago" because the US just recently agreed to send some vaccine to Canada. For the first time. Canada had been getting vaccine produced in the EU. UK is still at 0.
      - goddess33 6y ago
        Right about USA. Wrong about UK. USA has effectively banned export. UK signed a better deal (https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-the-eu-and-uk-astrazeneca-contracts/ https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-...), three months earlier, and as a result all AZ vaccine produced domestically in the UK is going to UK Citizens, and they are higher up the queue for AZ product manufactured in the EU. This produces the same effect as an export ban (i.e. domestic production used entirely by country), but is really just the result of competent procurement. https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_pascal_soriot_ceo_astrazeneca_coronavirus_covid_vaccines-284349628/ https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_... EU shat the bed by penny pinching. Don't paint incompetence as "humanitarian efforts"
mr_aks 6y ago
The EU actually signed a contract with AstraZeneca on August 27, a day earlier than the UK: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/17/europe/uk-astrazeneca-vaccine-contract-details-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/17/europe/uk-astrazeneca-vac....
- readittwice 6y ago
  Again, this is simply not true. Yes, the UK signed one particular contract on Aug 28, so one day after the EU with AZ. However, the UK had a binding contract with AZ since May. "However, the key lies in an earlier agreement that AstraZeneca made back in May with the U.K., which was a binding deal establishing “the development of a dedicated supply chain for the U.K.,” an AstraZeneca spokesperson said." Quote is from this article: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-the-eu-and-uk-astrazeneca-contracts/ https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
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turbinerneiter 6y ago

What makes this so painful for me is that person responsible, the comission president von der Leyen, was not actually elected by the people. We need some massive reforms and rebuilding after this. There already was a lot of EU scepticism, and instead of taking this opportunity to shine, they completely squandered it and destroyed trust.

iso1210 6y ago
Commission president was decided by the heads of each democratically elected government - so Merkel, Sanchez, Johnson, Macron etc. Just like in the UK where the PM is elected by each democratically elected MP
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  They promised us that the candidate of the strongest party will get the job.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Isn't the EVP the strongest block in the EU parliament right now?
    - turbinerneiter 6y ago
      Yes, but the candidate was Weber. Von der Leyen didn't even run for parliament. It was all a big deuce dropped on the parliament, really. The parliament is the only directly elected body in the EU, and the nations governments hate the idea that it could gain any kind of real power.
      - hef19898 6y ago
        The German chancellor is elected the same way. There is nothing preventing a candidate change after the election, plus there is no way to tell which coalition will actually form. And still almost nobody would argue that the German federal government isn't democratically legitimized.
        turbinerneiter 6y ago
        I mean why do all of you just keep ignoring what I'm saying? We were promised that the candidate of the winning party would get the job! All parties in the election agreed to that. We had debates between the candidates rooted on that promise. The whole election was based on that. The EU has serious problems with democratic legitimacy, it has serious problems with Trust, and yet people defend those moves because they are technically legal. The voters were told one thing and they got another thing. And then the EU does an about-face and wonders why there is so many people distrusting it. Do you want the EU to succeed or not? If you want it to succeed, like I do, we have to call out the issues and fix them, instead of defending broken things because we still believe in the whole. The EU will never reach its potential if we don't mature it's political system and give the people some direct, visible control.
        intricatedetail 6y ago
- timthorn 6y ago
  > Just like in the UK where the PM is elected by each democratically elected MP That's not the case. The PM is appointed by the Monarch, who will almost always choose the leader of the party able to command a majority in the House of Commons. That leader will be chosen according to the rules of their party. Boris Johnson won an election where all eligible members of the Conservative Party had a vote; it is the case that the shortlist of two was decided by MPs. The PM is also a regular MP and has to be elected by their local constituency voters.
  - iso1210 6y ago
    Technically of course, however the monarch is "advised" by the previous prime minster, who by convention tells her the person who can command confidence the house, which is the person who will get 50%+1 of the votes. If we're being technical the PM does not have to be an elected MP, and can be from the house of lords.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
andrepd 6y ago
The thing most people don't realise is that the EU is almost completely undemocratic, which is pretty crazy when you think about it for a minute. On the other hand it's also no surprise considering how it evolved: a producer's cartel for the coal and steel, and later agricultural, industries. It's a miracle it even works so well as it does.
theaeolist 6y ago
This is not by some accident of history. It is a deliberate decision of euro-skeptic countries to avoid turning the EU into a superstate. It is usually the same countries who then go to complain about the "democratic deficit" of the EU institutions. I went through the Brexit referendum debates and the hypocrisy was rank.
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  Exactly. This is one the first things we have to fix. The relationship between the nations government and the EU is in parts absurd.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    What’s absurd about it?
    - turbinerneiter 6y ago
      I.e. national governments using EU to pass legislation, which they then oppose locally, claiming the evil EU is forcing it upon them against their will. Generally, blaming all bad things on the EU and acting like it's a foreign power whenever it servers their needs, obfuscating the the national governments are the ones with most power over EU decisions.
      - makomk 6y ago
        The trouble is that none of the parties involved have any incentive to fix this. The national governments certainly don't, because it gives them a convenient way to pass laws they don't like, and the EU doesn't either because it both gives the EU more power and makes national governments beholden to them. For all the talk some populist politicians make about leaving the EU, it's not like they actually would because that would mean giving up their power to pass laws without that inconvenient democratic accountability. I reckon this was a major reason Brexit went the way it did. Supporters of the EU liked to point to the fact that actually, our government was behind a lot of the unpopular EU actions to argue that Brexit supporters had been tricked into wanting to leave the EU. What they didn't get was how completely unconvincing an argument that is. The politicians who were busy undermining and blocking any attempt to leave the EU also used it as a way to pass laws that the people they represent didn't want, shielding themselves from any kind of accountability to the general populace, and that was meant to make everyone fall in line behind them and want to remain in the EU? Ridiculous.
BurningFrog 6y ago
The simple reform is to not have EU handle vaccine procurement anymore.
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  Valid opinion, but I disagree.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Fair disagreement!
- jopsen 6y ago
  I'm sure that would work out fine for the wealthy EU countries. Though the small countries might not have the same leverage. But in the long run, wouldn't it be bad for all of us, if it takes eastern European countries a lot longer to reopen?
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    This whole topic is about how the EU screwed up the whole thing. It would be hard for individual countries to do any worse. Tiny Israel did vastly better that the EU, so the size of the EU clearly didn't help.
    - vkou 6y ago
      > It would be hard for individual countries to do any worse. It would be pretty easy for any individual countries that don't actually produce vaccines to do worse. Just look at Canada, for instance. It's a rich country that hoarded vaccine pre-orders (Enough to vaccinate its population three times over), and what was the result? A lower vaccination rate than the EU. That's because Canada does not control any part of the R&D or manufacturing process, so its orders got pushed to the back of the line. And neither do most of the countries in the EU. What makes you think Slovakia or Greece, or Italy are going to be any better off? What makes you think that if vaccine procurement were up to each individual country, that any of those countries would see a single dose before, say, Belgium reached 100% vaccination?
reddotX 6y ago
yawn.. why do you brexiteers even care about EU anymore? The European Commission isn't directly elected by citizens in the EU but the President of the Commission needs to be approved by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who are elected by voters from member states. MEPs also vote on whether to approve Commissioners who are nominated by governments of member states. In no country citizens directly elect the government. EU commission EU's government. The commission president is equivalent with a PM
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  I'm Austrian and pro EU. We were promised that the candidate of the strongest party in the parliament election will get the job. Every time this comes up people explain to me again what I already know, and never ever they seem to remember what the people were promised before the election.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    That system was propagated by the two “Spitzenkandidaten” themselves. It’s not a law nor did the national governments sign up for it. So yes, it was a bit of deception, created as part of of a fight between institutions. Just about nobody decided their vote based on these candidates, anyway.
    - turbinerneiter 6y ago
      If nothing that is being promised during an election actually matters, we really don't have to keep pretending like this is a democracy.
rayiner 6y ago
It sounds like the EU needs deconstruction not more construction. Go back to a free trade zone, not a super government.
- ThalesX 6y ago
  I would love for the EU to even give glimpses of a super government; what I see is fractal bureaucracy. Every crysis that seems to come up, it's a show of people in suits, negociating and coming up with plans and commisions and big worded manifests, and coming up with solutions sometimes decades after the initial spark. I come from Central Eastern Europe i.e. the poor people of the great EU. Our government is incompetent, corrupt, all the stereotypical attributes, and somehow, the most incompetent, lazy and corrupt end up Europoliticians (note: this is not a rule, there are exceptions). It's almost like a status symbol of when you beat the system; you get a nice cozy place where you do nothing. I am highly skeptical that we are alone in this. Then, from a ground level, as someone that wants to love the European Union and can see the great economic benefits it brought us since joining, I can't help but stare in awe as all the brain gets drained from my country. Every single capable person has to decide whether they want to stay here and basically fight for scraps or go to the west where they get money they couldn't dream of here. Sorry for the rant, your mention of a super government made me irrationaly angry at something I can't have, or don't want in its current form, and your deconstruction point is very much aligned with what I think needs to happen' currently.
  - nirv 6y ago
    Visa and borders won't stop capable people from migrating out of the country that you are amusingly planning to fix by isolation. It didn't before you joined the bloc, it won't after you "deconstruct the EU" — and you know it well. As long as you have precisely pinpointed the issue with supplying EP with incompetent MEPs (a common problem among most members of the bloc today, arguably including the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen), you've resorted to a completely destructive resolution of deconstructing the EU. As a punishment for the failures of your homeland, I suppose? "Bad EU did it, not our fault" is such a common trope among local politicians (hallo Österreich[1] from the latest news) and some citizens. The solution is in fixing your domestic politics, not dragging your capable citizens and fellow European neighbors down. It's solely thanks to the European Union's common approach[2] that the small/poor members of the bloc have truly equal access to vaccines. Otherwise small countries would have never been able to outbid rich Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and other power states on the free market. As you understand, there are no benefits for Germany, France et al. in this collective decision, they're literally paying with the lives of their citizens for the idea of the EU. A little gratitude. By being in the same boat, we will together overcome pandemic, poverty and political incompetence. You're free to disagree, just don't pretend that your local brexit will go swimmingly — it isn't rosy even for such a developed country as the UK. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-on-official-for-vaccination-missteps/ https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-seeks-to-pin-blame-o... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralised-eu-approach_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/commissions-centralis...
_pferreir_ 6y ago
> What makes this so painful for me is that person responsible, the comission president von der Leyen, was not actually elected by the people. Forgive me for picking on this, but I see it regularly come up whenever the deficit of democracy in the EU is discussed and I completely disagree with that assessment. The President of the US is not elected by "the people". The PMs of most countries are invited to form a government by the head of state, not directly by the people. This is a common feature in many democracies, executive roles are not directly elected and are instead picked based on support by parliamentary majorities. The President of the European Commission is elected by the Parliament, which is itself elected directly by the people of the EU. I see absolutely no problem there. There are other things which deserve more attention, like the disproportionate amount of power the Council has vis a vis the Commission and the Parliament.
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  Thanks for being the 1000 person to explain this to me. They promised before the election that the candidate of the strongest party would get the job. The whole plan was to strengthen the parliament, and the whole promise was broken after the election, _because_ the council wanted to make sure the parliament and commission are kept weak. Whenever I have this discussion people for some reasons assume I don't know even the most basic mechanics of the system I critize. And the same people always conveniently forget what we were promised during the election campaign. All parties agreed to make the candidate of the strongest party after the election the commission president. They all promised that. Von der Leyen is the council and national governments taking a dump on the parliament. And it didn stop there! During the backroom deals that lead to this, the parliament negotiated that they will only play along if they finally get more power. Fast forward a couple of months and they got stiffed and insulted again. The brexit deal i.e. was an affront to parliament, because they didn't even get to vote it on it. The vaccine deals were kept secret from them. And on and on and on. The only directly elected body in the EU is constantly being disrespected. You act like these are separate problems, but the fact that we got von der Leyen, who didn't even run in the election, IS THE SAME thing as the problem of Power of council vs. Commission vs. Parliament. The later caused the former. (Sorry for the tone, I got angry, but not at you. Please read it in mickey mouse voice to take the edge off.)
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Boris Johnson wasn’t elected directly (as prime minister), either. Nor Merkel. Or, for that matter, Biden.

albertop 6y ago

A good summary of EU problems is described [1]. Washington and London understood that crucial to mass procurement was throwing large amounts of R&D money at many companies in hopes some would work. Brussels focused on haggling down the cost per dose. Europeans pay a few dollars less per dose but ended near the back of the shipment line. [1] http://archive.is/M0bjW http://archive.is/M0bjW

hef19898 6y ago
Which is too simplistic. The UK, the US and the EU depend on their local manufacturing capacity. That capacity is limited, regardless initial delivery schedules were sufficient for herd immunity in the EU around June/July with a significant surplus in Q3/4. That surplus was slated to be shared with developing countries. Solid plan, solid procurement strategy. But after that procurement, nothing. No coordination of national campaigns with manufacturers, no planning on local and regional level, no operational procurement plan. And the list goes on.
- albertop 6y ago
  So why the UK/US numbers are way ahead of EU?
  - mpweiher 6y ago
    Because around half the EU production is exported whereas until a few days ago exactly 0% of the US and UK production were. "Until a few days ago" because the US just recently agreed to send some vaccine to Canada. For the first time. Canada had been getting vaccine produced in the EU. UK is still at 0.
    - goddess33 6y ago
      Right about USA. Wrong about UK. USA has effectively banned export. UK signed a better deal (https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-the-eu-and-uk-astrazeneca-contracts/ https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-...), three months earlier, and as a result all AZ vaccine produced domestically in the UK is going to UK Citizens, and they are higher up the queue for AZ product manufactured in the EU. This produces the same effect as an export ban (i.e. domestic production used entirely by country), but is really just the result of competent procurement. https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_pascal_soriot_ceo_astrazeneca_coronavirus_covid_vaccines-284349628/ https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_... EU shat the bed by penny pinching. Don't paint incompetence as "humanitarian efforts"

mr_aks 6y ago

The EU actually signed a contract with AstraZeneca on August 27, a day earlier than the UK: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/17/europe/uk-astrazeneca-vaccine-contract-details-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/17/europe/uk-astrazeneca-vac....

readittwice 6y ago
Again, this is simply not true. Yes, the UK signed one particular contract on Aug 28, so one day after the EU with AZ. However, the UK had a binding contract with AZ since May. "However, the key lies in an earlier agreement that AstraZeneca made back in May with the U.K., which was a binding deal establishing “the development of a dedicated supply chain for the U.K.,” an AstraZeneca spokesperson said." Quote is from this article: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-the-eu-and-uk-astrazeneca-contracts/ https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-...
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