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No one to blame but Angela Merkel who personally pushed other EU member states into delegating authority on the issue to the EMA even overruling her own ministe
by idownvoted 6y ago
No one to blame but Angela Merkel who personally pushed other EU member states into delegating authority on the issue to the EMA even overruling her own minister of health.
Needless to say that the EU – the hotbed of excess politicians who've been "early reitred" by their domestic parties into Brussles/Strasbourg – isn't surprising anyone with failing so hard on the vaccine issue.
Failing on so many levels: From the fine-print of contracts (e.g. with AZ) to the big scale disinformation campaigns (by Euractiv and domestic media outlets) spurring Anti-British sentiments (e.g. good old nationalistic hate, up-cycled for the upper-class).
What we are witnessing is compound incompetence, which upon fear being detected hastingly looks for an escape goat.
- throwawinsider 6y agoThat's very accurate indeed. Brussels is where careers go to die. We have the knowledge, network, expertise of 27 national governments and suddenly it's pushed aside by the ideological priorities of Merkel and European Commission. Result, continuous contradictions, delays, misguided and impossible initiatives, and the population of the 27 countries will spend a few more months locked down as there are no vaccines.
- chki 6y agoThere are a lot of things not true in your comment; I will point out a few things: The EMA did not get any additional power delegated to it by Merkel or anybody else. Maybe you are talking about the joint vaccine procurement by the European Commission? An instrument that does actually allow EU member states to purchase additional vaccines. If you are talking about EMA: the EMA does not even disallow countries from using other vaccines not approved by the EMA (Hungary is using Sputnik V for example). The EU is not a "hotbed of excess politicians who've been "early retired"". That might have been true on some level in the past but everybody has realized for quite some time that the EU has real powers and people want those jobs. There are many young MEPs and very competent members of the European Commission. We are not witnessing incompetence: Vaccine production is very difficult and the EU is not running a nationalistic scheme like the US or the UK who are not exporting any vaccines whatsoever. In four-five months most adult people in the EU will have the chance to be vaccinated. That's an enormous success story. Other developed countries don't have any significant amount of vaccines at all. All western countries with vaccines (except for US and UK) only have them because of the EU.
- breakfastduck 6y agoWe do not have the vaccines because of the EU. Companies in those countries are involved in the process of creating and manufacturing the vaccine. The EU as a body didn't set any of that up.
- chki 6y agoSorry, I meant to say: Because the EU allows vaccines to be exported. The EU could in theory stop all exports which is what the US has done.
- breakfastduck 6y agoYeah, it's insane to give them credit for that though. They have absolutely no justification for doing so other than to cover their own arse.
- chki 6y agoDoes the US have the justification to ban vaccine shipments to other countries in your opinion?
- breakfastduck 6y agoI think any kind of arbitrary bans on exports are unjustified really. Not entirely familiar with how the US is handling the vaccine - are they banning exports of the vaccine which were funded by or purchased by foreign countries? Or are they just saying they're not allowed to make any new deals?