EU Fun and Games

[Nick Riviera]

Maybe it is time that the UK, or rather, mostly the English, stopped whining, and got on and tried to run this country a little better? The country is now out of the EU, and there is nobody left to blame but ourselves now. The continual carping and never ending small minded comparisons, are all a little too sad for this man's taste, but then, as any South African rugby player knows, some of the English are often graceless to the core, in victory and in defeat!

It is all too much like the hunchback trying to big himself up by laughing at the cripple's bad leg!

A Saffer calling the English graceless. Oh, the irony!

You have a point. By the way did you see what my favourite English team, Harlequins did to Wasps this weekend?

Yep. I bet they wish they could play away from home all season.

[OFSO]

The European Central Bank has 'given' Ukraine €50,000,000 to buy vaccines. Wonder if they will be buying from Russia..

[Ibbie]

The background to and track record of the person who has caused the EU Covid vaccine fiasco:

https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula- ... ent-truth/

[OFSO]

Even my German friends who follow the unwritten rule of never uttering criticism of politicians are muttering about her as they look across the Channel and see a rare success story there (no thanks to Boris).

[4mastacker]

The background to and track record of the person who has caused the EU Covid vaccine fiasco:

https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula- ... ent-truth/

Linky no worky.

[Ibbie]

https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula- ... ent-truth/

[4mastacker]

Thank you.

[om15]

as they look across the Channel and see a rare success story there (no thanks to Boris).

Why do you say that, Boris was the one who put the team together to make the vaccines happen, or was it someone else?

[OFSO]

I don't credit Boris with having that much, or any other, ability, other than to hand out millions in all directions and expect it to have some effect. No, not expect, he just does it and forgets it. As for having something one might call a "team", no. He took a gamble on the vaccines and it paid off. The other gambles have cost a fortune and achieved nothing.

[Boac]

Bumbling Bojo was lucky with the vaccines. Nadhim Zahawi deserves most of the credit, I think, and the effort into securing vaccines early was good.

[4mastacker]

Boris recruited Kate Bingham to head up the Vaccines Task Force who then got on with the job in hand. Boris picked the right person to do the job - and as we look at probably crossing the 15 million vaccinations line tomorrow, I would say that was a good call.

[Boac]

4ma - yes, I forgot Kate - she was the one due most of the credit, although her bed sheets may not be very clean....... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ines-chief

[OFSO]

Super Mario has announced the EU (or his former ECB?) is going to give Italy €220 billion (!) to keep the country afloat. Wonder from where that's going to be sourced. I read yesterday that with loans, payments (the EU Covid Recovery Fund hasn't paid out a cent so far), and debts, the richer Member States, i. e. Germany, are going to have to find 27 trillion euros over the next couple of years.

[Pontius Navigator]

Better out than in Ermintrude

[4mastacker]

Boac, I would say the sum of money paid to Ms Bingham is insignificant compared to the £27million that was spunked found its way to some PPE middleman and represents much better value.

[Woody]

4ma - yes, I forgot Kate - she was the one due most of the credit, although her bed sheets may not be very clean....... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ines-chief

She married Norman, who went to Eton, in 1992. They have three children.

Think I’ve found the link

[OFSO]

Faced with a another wave of infections, Europe is again struggling to get a grip on the Covid-19 pandemic. At the moment, the efforts of containing the virus currently focus on getting as many people vaccinated as possible as quickly as possible. And Eastern Partnership countries are no exception to that rule. But while the EU works around the clock to register and deliver the vaccines produced by six Western companies, neither the Chinese (Sinovac Biotech) nor the Russian vaccine (Sputnik-V) are on the European officials' immunisation menu. And that may be a luxury most Eastern Partnership countries currently can’t afford.

Some, like the political elites in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, do criticise the Russian cure. They are suspicious of Sputnik-V for both its alleged inefficiency and the propaganda campaign pursued by Russian foreign policy. The memory of the 2020 disinformation campaigns while supposedly aiding Italy or Serbia are still fresh.

However, the refusal of even examining the possibility of importing the Sputnik-V has fuelled the internal animosities between government and the pro-Russian opposition in Ukraine. The country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmitry Kuleba highlighted the propagandistic costs that come with the Russian vaccine. China’s propaganda however isn’t bothering Kyiv, which is willing to purchase the Chinese vaccine as well as Western ones.

In Belarus and Armenia, on the other hand, there’s hardly any scepticism towards the Russian vaccine and already arranged the imports or are in advanced bilateral negotiations. And across the region, there’s less scepticism towards China. The latter seems to act much more subtly, raising minimum noise and negative perceptions for its anti-Covid-19 cure. As long as Eastern Partnership countries cannot receive the vaccine from Western pharmaceutical companies, they will be signing up for the Chinese vaccine, if not the Russian one.

The EU’s vaccine ‘non-diplomacy’
Though the EU has established an institutional logic towards the vaccine, it moves very slowly when defining a proactive vaccine diplomacy that would help its two neighbourhood areas to the East and South. At present, stabilising the intra-European epidemiological situation prevails over the geopolitical thinking and any ‘soft power’ engineering with the help of vaccines. This way, Brussels is losing the sight of an opportunity to develop an ‘anti-COVID-19 vaccine Marshall Plan’ for the regions in its proximity, starting with the Eastern Partnership states.

[OFSO]

Ludovic Kennedy:
What are your main memories of Brussels during the 1970s?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
A lot of hard work involved, of course. Committee meetings, committee meetings, endless committee meetings. For example, it took seven years of committee meetings before they could decide on a venue for the committee meetings. The only thing we all agreed on was it shouldn’t be Brussels. So, naturally, Brussels became the compromise choice

[OFSO]

Macron has told the G7 countries that they should donate 5% of their vaccine stocks to poor countries such as Africa. Given that countries such as France, Spain and Germany do not have enough for their own populations, and African countries in general don't have an infrastructure to vaccinate their inhabitants, this is a completely stupid idea.

[Rwy in Sight]

It is the thought that counts not the actions.