I haven't looked at the details in a while but generally it's because one of the parties wants to exploit loopholes and the level playing field measures prevent it.
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I haven't looked at the details in a while but generally it's because one of the parties wants to exploit loopholes and the level playing field measures prevent it.
Should I prepare my French flag for burning?
Oh, well that makes sense. No emergency here. Only thousands of people dying every day. Let's stick with the normal procedure. Then when the feck would they use the emergency procedure if not now??
Thank you. I had a recollection that M. Barnier mentioned that in the trade talks on fair competition, the UK should be treated specifically because of them having been in the EU.
When they know that a product is safe?
In that context, it means that the UK should be treated better which is what you are seeing.
Well I guess we will soon find out.
What's the emergency procedure for then?
I don't really understand the question but basically any member state can temporarily authorize the use of a new treatment that hasn't been approved yet within his borders for a specific population. That member is the one determining what is an emergency.
You said:
" No particular reason, the UK used an emergency procedure that also exists in the EU but EU member states have decided to stick to the normal procedure. "
So under what circumstances would the EU members use the emergency procedure that also exists in the EU if not now when thousands are dying every hour? This is the definition of an emergency.
It's not an EU decision, I should have said no reason at all. The question that you are asking should be aimed at each member states.
You’d hope that it’s because at least once in this pandemic clusterfeck, the EU wants to work and decide on something together, rather than every fecker doing whatever the hell it pleases since March, often with very little success.
Ok, so there is an emergency procedure, but only the UK decided to use it. All other European countries decided it's not an emergency, even though this is the definition of one. So well done to the UK.
The UK wants not to be treated as just any other independent state. They want to pick and choose the bits they do and don't like. They also seem to expect the EU to not act in their own best interests.
Or they decided that it wasn't safe? It's not as if every other country in the world followed the UK, maybe the UK are right but maybe they are wrong.
I personally wouldn't know, I'm in no place to judge these decisions.
No the the way I see it the EU is just slow at making any kind of decision always has been. Brussels summit upon Brussels summit over and over again to make any kind of decision.
I'd be surprised if most places also don't give approval very soon.
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Do you really believe that a month from now there is even a chance in a million they might come to the conclusion that it isn't safe?
Eh? That makes no sense.
You’ve just been told that individual states DON’T need to wait for EU wide approval.
They would be treated like any other independent state. But if it reduced its standards or tried to use unfair means of undercutting EU business then it's not going to get a trade deal, the same as any other independent state. Both sides have to agree a deal and neither side are forced to accept the conditions of the other.
To sell a product every product will have to be approved by the EU. If the UK have different standards then the EU would have to get theirs approved by the UK standards, whatever they may be.
What makes it more difficult is the Northern Ireland /Ireland border - the EU cannot have goods of different standards or businesses with unfair advantages profiting from goods going across the border into the EU, if there is a chance of substandard UK products coming into the EU everything will be checked which will cause even more chaos than there is going to be.
Not only that, the UK becomes a competitor right on the doorstep unlike all the other third countries, they have to get this right.
Britain famously handling the pandemic better than all the EU countries.
I’m sure they will and fair play to you wibs, you had faith in the speed of this that I didn’t.
Countries just doing their due diligence.
Had any country other than UK green lighted it yet?
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It's not a matter of belief, we are talking about a pharmaceutical product. If you mess up the consequences are massive.
As I said I have no knowledge on the subject and won't judge the people who definitely know more than I do.
All other countries it seems, feck they are even faster and better than the country that made the fecking vaccine.
I fully expected that we would have some failures though. I was mainly going on the low failure rate for vaccine development vs how many were in development. Assuming we get the three vaccines that are close to approval very soon that is so much better than anyone could have expected.
I would expect that the US will approve very soon as will the EU and much of the rest of the world soon thereafter as I can't imagine there are any surprises that will prevent approval at this late stage (famous last words). I suppose there is some uncertainty about what regime will be approved for the Oxford vaccine but I think it will be approved. If we get mass vaccination rolled out by the end of next year so we can largely revert to close to normal it will be one of the greatest achievements in my lifetime I think and a huge victory for science.
I also think/hope that it makes us prepare for a next time. I keep imagining a similar pandemic but with a longer asymptomatic but infectious period followed by a worse fatality and long term symptom rate. You wouldn't need a zombie apocalypse to collapse our medical facilities.
Edit: I read that Bahrain had become the second gulf nation to approve the vaccine. No idea which the first was.
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But didn't the dreaded hardline Brexiteers openly state they want no deal and the manic Mail and Express readers chanting WTO, WTO , WTO!
Whereas they know that whatever happens, deal or no deal, it is not going to make that much difference, they 're in the sh!t either way just very slightly less with some kind of deal.
Indeed. I'll consider whether the UK is out of line in a fortnight's time, if no one else has given approval. At the moment we're just getting a load of hot air according to what people's pre-conceived ideas are anyway, that the UK is shit (most caftards) or brill (one or two).
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Just get ready to wave the Union Jack as Britain sinks and we'll be OK. Maybe it'll create a butterfly effect.
Well it seems that eu member states are waiting for unanimous agreement, which takes longer and could cost more lives. Excellent.
Bookies odds on no-deal now 7/2 against. Presumably hordes of caftards will be beating a path to their doors?
Was going to say, after everything that's happened since the pandemic began I'm not sure how you could look at the UK diverging once more from what most of their EU neighbours are doing and think "well that's definitely a good thing".
I'm with @JPRouve on this one. None of us here know how drug approval processes work in the EU as a whole or in individual states. So being all judgemental about it seems a little premature.
Luckily, though, there is this thing called the internet. The European Medicines Agency (EMA - which was located in London before Brexit, but is now in Amsterdam) has a page on the authorization process:
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/about-us/what-we-do/authorisation-medicines
In short, companies that want to sell new medicine that is not generic and requires a prescription in the EU need to get it assessed by the EMA. The Agency then provides a recommendation to the European Commission which decides on approvals. Once that's been granted, the product can be sold in all EU countries, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. So nothing to do with Brussels summits or political games (a ridiculous idea for medicine anyway). They have a nice little infograph explaining why a centralized process is beneficial:
I haven't read any arguments on the vaccine process, but I would think that approving the vaccining centrally makes sense. The EMA exists already, why not use it? Also, this creates fairness among member states; no advantage to countries with greater approval process capacity. Plus, no need to add burden to the current work of individual countries by having a few dozen individual approval processes. Finally, given all the conspiracy theories out there and existing vaccine hesitancy, it seems more secure to me to use the known procedure, rather than fuelling suspicion or increasing safety concerns by expiditing the approval process.
Interestingly, as it turns out, the British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) seems to have followed the exact same process as the EMA. Which provides another reason against countries using individual processes: why go there is they're using the same method anyway?) This CNN article discusses exactly that:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/02/uk/uk-pfizer-vaccine-approval-gbr-intl/index.html
While they keep mentioning this rolling review of the MHRA and how it is only used to expedite approvals in emergency situations, they say that the EMA also used it and even started at the same time. So there is actually no difference there. The only unique explanation I see is someone's suggestion that Pfizer/BioNTech would have worked particularly closely with the MHRA, thus allowing it to move more quickly than others.
So, why did the UK go it alone? Maybe they knew they could make these Pfizer/BioNTech contacts work for them. Or maybe it's just in the spirit of Brexit. But in the end, it seems they really just did the same thing as the EU - except on their own.
That sentence makes no sense. There is no agreements involved or unanimity, the EMA will give its approval when they do and in the mean time each country is individually able to temporarily authorize the use of the vaccin, it just happens that no one outside of the UK has done that anywhere on the globe when it comes to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccin. At the moment only two countries are ready to vaccinate people the UK and Russia.
Yes, we are up there with Russia on our medical approval procedures now.
One of my kiddos had the same attitude when he once ran across a road without looking - but I didn't get hit so it's okay. He was four at the time though, so not quite sure what other people's excuses are for saying that we should just rush in head first.
Unless this vaccine has gone through the proper process. Maybe it has. I have no faith in this Government putting safety before popularity first, tough, and I'm getting visions of Boris standing in front of experts holding a puppy ransom.
To be fair both countries could be at the top, it's not as if they don't have some of the most brilliant scientists in the world.
I'm not that great but thank you.
I think you're missing the point. The UK is still following EU rules and chose to use the emergency procedure which any of the EU member states could have done. So claiming that the UK approved it because they left the EU is just a bare-faced lie. Yet again lots of gullible people believe all the crap spouted by the UK government.
It has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit.
Reading the coverage this morning, it seems the outstanding 'level playing field' issues aren't really to do with product standards, but the application of subsidies and how they are regulated. It seems the EU is asking that all EU funding for European business is excluded from state aid restrictions, which the UK is unwilling to agree if their own hands are being somewhat tied. The other issue seems to be whether the UK state aid regulator will need to pre-approve UK subsidies or if it will act in retrospect.