…very simply put, the EU never set aside an “EU First” directive, instead (foolishly) going with a trust approach that the parties involved in prior agreements would live up to those agreements. The UK funded Covid research primarily on the basis that if there happened to be an outbreak, they would receive vaccines 1st, the Germans funded the research on the EU side on the basis that everybody would receive even counts, probably naive ın hindsight. There has been underhanded stuff going on for months leading up to the outbreak such as the UK Govt blocking the pharma mergers between Oxford and Merck so they could secure it for AZ instead. In layman’s terms skipping the queue at the soup kitchen so their friends in the kitchen could move the soup out the side door ahead of everyone.
The Yanks then put a ban on vaccine exports after securing a merger with BioNTech which means the EU were forced to export vaccines to other countries before rolling out to their own. Across the board it looks like the EU had the wool pulled over their eyes by the UK & the US as they were dependent on good will and common ground during the pandemic more than cut throat sales and procurement tactics, if anything that’s the only fault of theirs. Implying they’re having a hissy fit with AZ at the expense of millions of citizens is just plain fucking dumb but if a few quasi-tories want to bang that drum then let them.
Equating this by some as a good reason for Brexit is laughable. When all this has blown over you’ll still be paying out the nose for a bunch of bananas.
