The
DUP are making hay out of the shredded Article 16 threats. They do have a point, they represent voters who want full Union but have found themselves part of the EU-by-proxy and less attached to Great Britain. Even if their message is correct for the voters I always find there's too much of the swivel-eyed-loon about Arlene Foster to take her seriously. She's a kind of anti-Sturgeon.
Oh dear oh dear. Only yesterday I for once found myself in agreement with Foster, when she called the imposition of article 16 despicable and "an absolutely incredible act of hostility". Yet now she's calling for it
... the same words apply!
The EU have made a massive blunder with this threat, and it will have an impact even though it has been withdrawn for the moment.
Both the UK and the EU can, if they believe the other side is not playing ball, unilaterally override parts of the Brexit agreement, but this is the first time that one side has actually taken a step that would have effected hard border-like conditions in Ireland, to the consternation of London, Belfast and Dublin.
This is a tricky moment, though, because it kind of proves the swivel-eyed Brexit loons right to some extent - that the EU can threaten a hard border all they want, but it isn't going to happen.
So that begs the question, if the EU can't play that card but find themselves in a situation where they have to do something, what will they do? The EU can certainly make life difficult for the UK in a number of ways that doesn't involve implementing a hard border in Ireland, but that in itself will not help with the immediate problem that the EU suspect that the UK will use NI as a back door to continue to export vaccines from the EU when otherwise they would block such exports.
There's an obvious but very controversial option that has been mooted in this thread before - if you can't put the border between Eire and NI, you put the border between Eire and the rest of the EU. I don't think it will come to that, but it might. In other words, the EU may have no choice but to limit exports of vaccines to Ireland as a whole in order to stop illicit cross-border exports (although they themselves are responsible for making such exports illicit in the first place).
The whole thing is a bit more than a blunder only impacting NI. Export controls aren't being put in place to stop an illicit route into the UK, they don't need to actually do border checks anywhere - this isn't just about a bit of cigarette smuggling, this is large companies directly supplying national health services! Whether successful or not, this is an attempt to be able to restrict Pfizer's ability to supply the UK - presumably using the exact opposite argument that they are using against AZ, namely that a 'best effort' does not imply a committed delivery date (re UK contract with Pfizer). Regardless of the legal status of it, it would be morally reprehensible to prevent people who've had a first dose of Pfizer vaccine from getting the second within what is already an extended timeframe.
Re. "The EU can certainly make life difficult for the UK in a number of ways ...", sure, they can, but is any of it reasonable or even defensible at all?!
In the article
WHO criticises EU over vaccine export controls, the BBC describes the EU's move as:
What is the EU doing?
The European Union is introducing export controls on coronavirus vaccines made in the bloc, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.
The so-called transparency mechanism gives EU countries powers to deny authorisation for vaccine exports if the company making them has not honoured existing contracts with the EU.
"The protection and safety of our citizens is a priority and the challenges we now face left us with no choice but to act," the European Commission said.
Yep, they used 'so-called' appropriately for once!
Earlier in the week I'd already seen this escalation called a row between the UK and the EU, which at that point it wasn't - it was a row between EU and AZ. It is entirely the EU who is starting a row with UK with these export controls, and we will be
forced to respond in kind with similar controls.
This explosive, nuclear option first, approach from the EU is only going to backfire. They will end up with not much more vaccine than they had before, while having soured relations with multiple allied countries and sullied their reputation globally. Also, I can only imagine that restrictions on vaccine
ingredients will be a net loss to all involved.
TBH, when I say EU above I mainly mean VDL. The buck stops with her. It's one thing for national leaders and ministers to put out strong rhetoric, rather meaningless in the end (particularly Macron), but quite another for actions to be put in place from the top.
update 17:55 GMT: BBC article
EU 'fiasco' on NI heaps pressure on Commission makes the same points, but IMO still plays down how harmful export restrictions of any kind would be (regardless of NI).
From
The Guardian:
“We were worried about vaccine nationalism – but the person we feared was Trump, that he would be able to pressurise a US company, and perhaps buy up the drug stocks,” said a former adviser at the Department of Health. “We never expected there would be a row with the EU.”
