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Coffee House Shots

Could the EU's vaccines spat impact the UK's supply?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.42.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the last 24 hours, the EU has threatened to place export controls on vaccines manufactured in the EU; while a German paper has been corrected by Berlin for misreporting that the German government thought the Oxford-Astrazeneca jab was only eight per cent effective in over-65s. Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about what's going on and whether it could impact Britain's supply.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

0:24.7

Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots for Spectators' Daily Politics Podcasts. I'm Isabel Hardman

0:30.5

and I'm joined by James Forsyth and Katie Balls. Well, there's a row, several rows, in fact,

0:36.3

in the European Union over vaccinations.

0:40.0

James, the EU has told Pfizer to warn them when they start giving more jabs to Britain.

0:48.3

Explain a little bit more about what's going on and why here.

0:51.8

The EU's vaccination programme has not got off to a rapid start.

0:56.5

It isn't vaccinating at the pace that the UK is or the US is.

1:02.1

And I think that is causing tensions in the bloc and the EU is trying to get on the front foot.

1:08.8

It had a big blow recently because Pfizer and Bioentec who produced a vaccine in Belgium

1:15.6

announced they were going to refit the factory there to try and increase supply.

1:20.7

That was going to lead, though, to a temporary reduction in supply.

1:24.7

Then much to the EU's annoyance, AstraZeneca, whose Oxford Astrosenica Zab has not yet been

1:30.0

approved by the European regulator, but that's expected to be approved this week, said that they

1:35.3

were cutting their supplies to the EU by 60%. And the EU were very cross about that. And I think what

1:43.3

the EU is trying to do is it's trying to say to,

1:47.7

it's plan that you have to notify them before you export COVID vaccine. It's trying to ensure

1:53.4

that it basically gets first dibs on the vaccine made in the EU. So, for example, on Pfizer biotech,

2:00.4

if Pfizer hadn't delivered everything to the EU,

2:03.2

I think the EU would object to them fulfilling their contractual obligations to the UK by exporting there.

2:09.7

At the moment, the EU is stressing this is purely about notification to ensure that they get what their contractual entitled to.

2:16.1

But it's very easy to see how this could turn into a situation like it did with PPE last spring,

...

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