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Bruno Waterfield, Brussels Profile picture
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11 May, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Quite something. Barnier wants to suspend all immigration to France and open a debate on Schengen/EU borderless travel sone
To be crystal clear: Barnier is talking about non-European immigrants, Arabs and Muslims predominently, not EU free movement. He is aditionally insisting on fortress Europe as precondition for Schengen
Imagine if you will, the reaction if a senior British Conservative seeking to become the country's leader put a ban on non-European immigration at the centre of their campaign?
Truly bizarre reactions here, somehow implying that because Barnier is not talking about EU free movement, residency rights for people who are overwhelmingly white, (which was never suggested) then what he is saying somehow ok. I RT'd it because it ain't

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More from @BrunoBrussels

Bruno Waterfield, Brussels Profile picture
23 Mar
Back from the brink of a vaccine war? It seems so
thetimes.co.uk/article/angela…
Some important details. Halix stocks are the key - and it is a relatively small figure, some >4m doses when filled and finished
Britain is talking "reciprocity" on AstraZeneca production - and possibly Valneva and Novavax
Talks are on defining the principle in terms of UK's involvement in producing vaccine ingredients for European production, or finished jabs and levels of UK investment in manufacturing
Read 7 tweets
Bruno Waterfield, Brussels Profile picture
22 Mar
We feel like bit part actors in a German drama, said a diplomat last night of EU export ban driven, as many see it, by prospect of electoral annihilation for Merkel's Christian Democrats at the polls

thetimes.co.uk/article/ben-wa…
Dutch see Netherlands as having little or no legal choice if the European Commission blocks the exports of the unfinished vaccine product
Ownership would be a potential question, can Brussels force AstraZwneca to use the product for fill and finish? That's why EU might trigger draconian 122 clause to give power to confiscate products
Read 10 tweets
Bruno Waterfield, Brussels Profile picture
12 Mar
It is going to get a lot worse - especially if (as is distinctly possible) the EU blocks a vaccine shipment to UK this April or May
Invidious comparisons between Britain and EU on vaccine roll out is becoming a major factor and will make inevitable Brexit friction worse
Dynamic hard to break
UK government talks up success on vaccination procurement and roll out to play down impact of Brexit failures - especially on customs systems & absence of deals on food
There was always going to be friction but real, avoidable problems now exposed
Meanwhile perceptions that Britain is doing better on vaccines is driving some EU capitals a bit nuts while London is rubbing their noses in it
Resentment is poisoning the post TCA and NI protocol way beyond expected friction
Read 8 tweets
Bruno Waterfield, Brussels Profile picture
10 Mar
Couple of things to note on Oxford-AstraZeneca and questions over exports from with implicit allegation that Britain has beggared its EU neighbours by withholding vaccines
UK has in fact suffered similar supply shortfalls - AZ a third of what was anticipated by end of Q1 2021
AZ, only approved vaccine being manufactured in the UK, has a decentralised manufacturing model. It's not-for-profit, low cost and open licensing as aim of scaling up global production quickly
UK tax-payer funded that development, enabled clinical trials & global manufacture
Hence the huge capacity being developed by Serum Institute of India in India or Australia's development of its own manufacturing. One of objectives of Oxford project was to ensure that AstraZeneca produced the vaccine for globally
Read 6 tweets
Bruno Waterfield, Brussels Profile picture
10 Mar
Conference on the Future of Europe today "in a subdued ceremony designed to have as few people as possible notice it’s happening"
Via @MehreenKhn
Far cry from the Laeken declaration, showing how moribund & subterranean EU federalism has become

amp.ft.com/content/231dcd…
The merit of the last convention was that it was at least constitutional meaning it was openly declared in a mega-treaty and then rejected by voters, mothballed after French and Dutch voters. Before being enacted as Lisbon treaty without votes
This exercise does not even have the merit of a constitutional aim and expresses the EU's dismal zeitgeist rather well as the private property of declining and accountability dodging elites who eschew vision because that invloves public politics
Read 4 tweets
Bruno Waterfield, Brussels Profile picture
9 Mar
. @eucopresident has fanned flames of a growing row
He claimed today that UK has "imposed an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced on their territory"
This is "completely false" according to UK
Here is his newsletter
All countries, including UK and many EU members, have restrictions on wholesale of pandemic medicines - think PPE
Read 4 tweets

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