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Tony Connelly

14 Apr, 9 tweets, 2 min read

@rtenews

BREAKING: The United Kingdom has asked for more time to respond to the legal action taken by the EU over it’s unilateral decision to ease the requirements of the Northern Ireland Protocol, @rtenews understands.

2/ The request came in two letters from the UK’s chief Brexit minister David Frost. The EU launched twin-track legal proceedings against the UK on March 15 following the decision by the NI Secretary Brandon Lewis to unilaterally delay the full implementation of the Protocol.

3/ The Commission had issued a letter of formal notice to the UK government, which is the first step in a legal procedure which could end up in the European Court of Justice.

4/ The letter of formal notice accused the UK of “breaching the substantive provisions of the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland” as well as the “good faith obligation” enshrined within the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

5/ A second “political” letter was sent by the European Commission vp Maroš Šefčovič to Lord Frost calling on London “to rectify and refrain from putting into practice” the announced extension of the grace period for certain border checks on goods moving from Great Britain to NI

6/ The UK was given one month to respond to the two letters.

However, two sources have told RTE News that Lord Frost has asked for an extra month to respond to the legal action.

One source described the two letters as “courteous” and “respectful”.

7/ It’s understood Lord Frost stressed in the letters that the UK was convinced that its unilateral actions in extending grace periods and cancelling other requirements of the Protocol was a bona fide attempt by the UK to comply with its obligations.

8/ He is also understood to have stressed the complexity of the issues involved.

9/ When it unilaterally extended grace periods on March 3 the UK govt argued that the move amounted to a short term, practical step that was required to avoid any food shortages from April 1, when the mutually agreed grace period related to EU food safety requirements expired.

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More from @tconnellyRTE

Tony Connelly

@tconnellyRTE

13 Apr

European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic has told political group leaders in the European Parliament that technical discussions with the UK on the Northern Ireland Protocol are progressing and that the UK was engaging on the issues “in good faith.”

2/ Two sources have also confirmed that Mr Sefcovic’s UK opposite number Lord Frost has accepted an invitation to travel to Brussels for dinner with Mr Sefcovic on Thursday evening.

3/ It’s understood Mr Sefcovic told the European Parliament’s Conference of Presidents, made up of the political group leaders, that while technical talks on the Protocol were proceeding positively, there were some 27 issues which remain outstanding.

Read 12 tweets

Tony Connelly

@tconnellyRTE

24 Mar

On the eve of the EU video summit tomorrow, plenty of briefing on vaccines, so here is a guide to some of the sentiment out there:

1/ The European Commission's new vaccine export restrictions will be discussed by leaders but the reality is that under EU trade rules the Commission has a prerogative to amend regulations in this way...

2/ There is a growing number of leaders who will voice their concern at a restrictions leading to a lose-lose tit-for-tat vaccine trade war, and reputational damage for the EU. Ireland, NL, Sweden, Belgium and others in this camp

Read 13 tweets

Tony Connelly

@tconnellyRTE

24 Mar

Main points of the European Commission's new vaccine export restrictions:

1/ On top of the Jan 29 transparency mechanism, ie whereby member states must grant an authorisation to vaccine exports outside the EU to ensure they're compliant with EU vaccine contracts, there are added criteria

2/ Proportionality: roughly speaking, how much of the recipient country has already been vaccinated and what is the epidemiological situation in that country

Read 12 tweets

Tony Connelly

@tconnellyRTE

23 Mar

Worth noting by Sandra Gallina, EU's chief vaccine negotiator: last year the Commission entered advanced purchase agreements with pharma companies, ie buying doses of vaccines which did not yet exist.

2/ In order to conclude the contract the pharma companies needed a commitment of a certain amount of doses, ie an incentive to research + produce, so they would need a commitment to produce 300m doses for example

3/ However, as the negotiator, the European Commission needed to be sure the doses were being bought by member states. At the beginning, member states had to decide whether to stay in or out of the programme.

Read 7 tweets

Tony Connelly

@tconnellyRTE

22 Mar

@simoncoveney

Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs @simoncoveney says if the UK delivers a clear road map setting out how it will implement the NI Protocol, then the atmosphere would change and the EU would be in a position to “look at” flexibilities and extensions to grace periods.

@MarosSefcovic

2/ Coveney was speaking in Brussels after meeting the European Commission vice president @MarosSefcovic, co-chair of the EU-UK Joint Committee.

Mr Coveney said there had been contacts between EU and UK officials with a view to resuming more formal talks around the Protocol

@rtenews

3/ “I think certainly the EU side wants to get a process underway again so that both sides are talking to each other,” he told @rtenews

Read 11 tweets

Tony Connelly

@tconnellyRTE

16 Mar

Peter Arlett EMA: "If we look at what we would expect in the European population for thromboembolic events the number of reported events is far lower than we would expect in the background population

"The review is focusing on a small number of case reports of very rare + rather unusual thrombotic events, including thrombosis combined with thrombocytopenia. When you get down to individual cases,1, 2, 3 or 4 cases - then the epidemiological approach becomes much more difficult

"firstly it becomes difficult to get the background rates, there is less published in the literature, there is less available in electronic health care databases, therefore the focus is much more on looking at the clinical features of the individual reported case..."

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