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In the hours around midnight between Friday and Saturday, the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had to dedicate urgent talks with the prime ministers of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Hours earlier, the Commission had published a proposal that pharmaceutical companies must have the approval of EU countries before exporting covid-19 vaccines to the outside world, including the UK.
The purpose of the proposal is to ensure that the vaccines that the EU has paid companies to develop and manufacture do not reach other customers.
Wording how these controls would develop rapidly. Too fast. It appears that there were one or more Commission officials who did not understand the explosive in all matters relating to the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The people who were going to nail the text before the decision and publication did not have enough time or had lost their minds.
In the text, which has now been amended, the EU chooses to refer to a paragraph of the Brexit deal painstakingly negotiated between the EU and the UK. Ultimately, the section deals with the occurrence of serious unforeseen events, one party can warn the other that it wants to start controlling the flow of goods.
It’s an emergency clause that, hopefully, will never have to be used. When the reference suddenly appeared on Friday, protests erupted in Belfast, Dublin and London. Northern Ireland Prime Minister Arlene Foster, leader of the conservative DUP, called it “an incredible act of hostility” by the EU.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen had to intervene with her late-night phone calls. The crisis is now on the surface, but trust in the European Commission and Ursula von der Leyen is badly damaged. Especially from the British and Irish sides.
Arlene Foster has followed her criticism by demanding that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, for his part, activate the same emergency clause in the Brexit deal because there have been major disruptions in the flow of goods between Britain and Northern Ireland since the change of government. . year.
Friday’s mistake is likely to have dire consequences.
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