Alegrias1
No, we're not being "held over a barrel".
The EU want the manufacturers to deliver on their commitments. Which means not sending higher proportions of vaccines to third party countries when the cannot meet the orders of the EU itself. They want what they ordered.
As we are now a third party country with no stake in the EU, they can treat us the same as everybody else when it comes to exports, which is exactly what they are doing. They're not withholding supplies just to annoy us. So yes they can withhold permission for exports. Welcome to the world post Brexit.
What is so interesting here though is that the EU seems to be blocking exports from one company because it is having a fight with another, quite separate, company. This is really counter productive for them. They might get more vaccines in the short term but if big companies find themselves subject to restrictive practices like this then they will simply move production elsewhere. The EU will then have shot itself in the foot.
Not that I'm at all worried about that of course - but they should be.
