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EU27

I was given a newspaper (Daily Mail 22/3/21, page 16) cutting and there are a couple of interesting things from an article:

1)
'Last week the first batch of a Covid 19 vaccine made by Valneva in Livingston, Scotland, rolled off the production line.

The UK Government had ordered 100 million doses of the Valneva product, making it our equal first choice along with the Oxford / AstraZenecca vaccine.

Yet Valneva is a French company.

Its chief executive, Franck Grimaud, explained why it will be delivering to the UK months before it will to the EU (probably not until 2022): 'The UK responded the fastest. They took all the risks.....and immediately forwarded E96 million to use before the end of last December. It's logical that, under contract, we undertook to deliver to them first.'



2)
Guy Verhofstadt (former Belgium Prime Minister) has spelt this out most clearly.

'He examined the two contracts and observed:'Unlike the EU, the UK contract has an additional article stating that AstraZenecca "shall not enter into any agreement with any foreign government.....that would by its terms conflict with AZ's obligation hereunder".'

And Verhofstadt also pointed out: "The EU contract is based on an "estimated time schedule", full stop. In the British contract, by contrast there is precisely described procedure to guarantee a timely delivery of doses.'

In other words, the British negotiated a much better and more thorough deal. This is quite something from Guy Verhofstadt, who had been more voluble in his denunciations of Brexit than perhaps any other European politician.

 
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