EU elevation map

EU elevation map

(by @cstats) https://t.co/KNcG7VE45M pic.twitter.com/7ZNK1mmqx3

— Information is Beautiful (@infobeautiful) November 25, 2025

28min clip - The Brexit effect: how leaving the EU hit the UK | FT Film

#infographic - uk Transport and storage businesses are most likely to cite a lack of EU applicants when unable to fill vacancies

What on earth is going on with the #EU and #AstraZenica ?

It has taken me a while to figure out what on earth is going on with this story but below is my summary.  

1) The EU Politicians are being blamed for slow vacinnation rates - so like any other politician their reaction to being held accountable for something is to blame somebody else.

2) So they're blaming AstraZenica - claiming they haven't honoured their contract. But Astra Zenica denies that, probably because ...

3) The UKs contract takes precedence over those the EU has with AstraZenica - the EU's is 'best efforts' whilst the UK contract has exclusivity claims Matt Hancock - and this conclusion is supported by the fact that whilst AstraZenica manufactures the vaccine in the UK is appears to have not exported any.

4) The summary above is backed up by the following additional facts:

a) Macron is quoted as saying that this is "the end of naivety" from the EU;

b) the EU haven't taken AstraZenica to court for breach of contract;

c) the EU have talked about effectively adding a new law to create a vaccine export ban from the EU.

If you want to see the detailed info and sources I based the above conclusions on, then see below 

THE DETAIL ON THE VACCINE EXPORT ROWs 

According to this Full Fact post

 - of the vaccines approved for use in the UK, only the AstraZeneca vaccine is made in the UK

- the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on 17 March that over the previous six weeks, 41 million doses had been exported to 33 countries.  This is how many vaccines have been exported from vaccine manufacturers in EU states,  rather than by the EU as an organisation.  

- it does also seem to be the case that no vaccines manufactured in the UK have been exported.  This seems to be for a number of reasons, but namely because of the specifics of the contracts it signed with producers and also reportedly, how quickly the UK began negotiating with firms like AstraZeneca for vaccine fulfillment. 

According to this BBC post of today, "European Union leaders have stopped short of banning vaccine exports after a protracted row with the Anglo-Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca."

Quotes in the BBC post attributed to various EU leaders uses language saying: 

- AstraZeneca must "catch up" on deliveries to the EU before exporting doses elsewhere; 

- this marks "the end of naivety" from the EU;

- "[It] has to honour the contract it has with European member states before it can engage again in exporting vaccines,"; 

"We want to explain to our European citizens that they [can] get their fair share.";

AstraZeneca has denied that it is failing to honour its contract.

According to this Daily Express post from yesterday   

Matt Hancock has said "They have a ‘best efforts’ contract and we have an exclusivity deal.  Our contract trumps theirs. It’s called contract law — it’s very straightforward."

#brexit - what are the #negotiating positions the UK can take? @LSEpoliticsblog

Preamable 

Read this 1st bit to get into some of the mindset of a professional commercial negotiator.  Then use that understanding to consider how the various parties might approach the Brexit negotiations.

Negotiations are governed by which person has the power in the commercial relationship.

To understand where the power lies careful thinking is usually wise before negotiations start.  

Which "red lines" can't your negotiating team cross?  At what point do you walk away from negotiations (for real as opposed to a piece of negotiating theatre).   How do you signal these positions to the other side so as to allow negotiation towards but not beyond them? How far are you able to bluff on what your red lines are?  But take care on bluffing. Remember once a bluff is called you're future negotiating position is stuffed if you actually have to continue to negotiate.  

Often who has the power in a negotiation can be indicated by analysis about who is under time pressure to do the deal.  Or an assessment of who can really walk away from the deal.  Or the market reality about how unique the sellers product is.

So if you're a supplier of something that is wanted or fairly rare or only available for a short time or in demand - and you have a pushy buyer wanting special rates/terms then .....

... you might be able to decide you won't do business with the buyer if they insist on special discounts.  After all you have lots of other willing customers.  If you give one a discount then if your other customers find out they will want a discount as well and your profit rate may go down (Ceteris paribus);

 ... basically as a seller in this kind of position you can trump the buyer's "give me a discount" pitch with "Non".  

Given this fairly brief intro to some of the dynamics in commercial negotiations ....

what are the brexit negotiating positions UK can take?

Option 1 - enact article 50 then negotiate on the terms of the UK leaving the EU - from a UK Brexit perspective this has a certain attraction in terms of getting on with it and trying to calm the financial markets. Although its equally possible that as facts from negotiations emerge the financial markets might get spooked.  

The major problem with this approach is that under Article 50 the EU negotiators can just spin the negotiations out to 2 years at which point the UK is chucked out.  

So basically the EU has the ability to time out the negotiations. They have almost all the power once Article 50 is enacted.  Which of course is one of the reasons why the initial EU response to Brexit was along the lines of "OK  - fair enough - democracy has spoken - but we won't negotiate till you enact clause 50".  

Once the 2 year Article 50 clock is clicking the UK won't have a position of power to negotiate from.  The only way round that problem is to agree with the EU to turn the clock off.  The argument for a clock off agreement might be along the lines of "It has taken us over 40 years to put the various trading & commerce arrangements in place.  Time limiting how long it takes to unpick or change these is unrealistic".

My guess would be that the EU negotiators won't turn the 2 year clock off - because it gives them such a powerful negotiating position.

Option 2  - don't enact Article 50 until the EU agree to specific fundamental undertakings about the UK Brexit.  To which the EU (given its current position) would probably say "get lost". 

So one UK response to such a "Nein"  might be as follows ...

"We are still EU members and £ contributors. Till you agree to some fundamental undertakings before we enact Article 50 we'll use the full weight of our membership and legal and veto rights to make EU management very, very, very difficult.".  

Of course this is a fairly nuclear approach and relations would sink to an all time low.  But in such a situation the EU is hampered from getting on with its business till it it can get rid of the UK. And the "lets leave the EU" factions in other countries might feed off this disruption to try to get an in/out referendum in their country.

With this option the major problem is that it largely destroys the working relationships. And of course a lot of care would have to be taken over how legally binding the pre-negotiation undertakings were.  

But some may argue that the relationships are going south fast already.  And of course this option does go some way to making the negotiating power positions between the EU and the UK more even.

Option 3 - enact or don't Article 50 - Such an approach might work if the UK's aim is to exit the EU trading arrangements and create/use other trade deals with the rest of the world. Indeed there are already some arguments emerging in the media along these lines ...

"Why would we want to stay with a stagnant low growth market only representing part of Europe?  Lets create trade deals with India and China and the USA and Pacific nations and Africa - those are the markets where growth is good"

For Brexit supporters this option also has the greatest chance of delivering on their rhetoric on "Taking back Control" and on initiating the EU citizen border controls they want.

But you'll notice that some EU members are already claiming that the UK can't legally negotiate with other parties before it enacts Article 50 to exit the EU.  

Although this argument seems open to challenge given that the rest of the EU members have already "informally" met together to discuss Brexit.  (I think they used the "informally" sleight of hand to get round the technicality of them holding discussions without the UK).  

So these are the three main negotiating options I can think of if "Brexit means Brexit" in the words of our new PM.  

The Brexit negotiations are set to be a fascinating insight into political and trade negotiations.

And doubtless they'll be several books, dissertations and doctoral studies on them over the next couple of years.

#infographic #EU corporate taxation & #tax avoidance

found via taxresearch

#brexit or #ues2eu ? - "We believe in our own democracy. They see #Europe as the symbol of a liberal democracy"

Image from wikipedia

This posts title is a quote from @BBCRadio4 's "The Reunion" programme on the Maastricht Treaty

In that programme Sue MacGregor is joined Lord Lamont  a former chancellor, Ken Clarke who replaced him, the Government Whip responsible for Europe, David Davies, and Conservative backbencher Sir Bill Cash, a prominent Euro-rebel, as well as John Major's Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs and later the Official Historian on Britain's Relationship with Europe, Sir Stephen Wall.

At the 39:24 time mark in the programme David Davies says the following on the reasons why the UK is different from many of the other countries in the EU.....

"
- the Germans and Italians came into the original Iron & Steel community from a dictatorship,

- the Spainards came in from Franco,

- the Portuguese came in from Katana,

- the Greeks came in from the Colonels,

- Eastern Europe came in from under the jackboot of Soviet domination,

- We came in after 150 years of liberal democracy that worked quite well.

So our attitude to Europe is not the same as theirs.  

We believe in our own democracy.

They see Europe as the symbol of a liberal democracy.

Its a very different viewpoint."

Journalism & the #Brexit debate #Polis2016 - the focus on the economy, the fact free ghetto of social media, the UK media's power - and why weren't 16 years olds allowed to vote?

Last Thursday I attended the #Polis2016 conference at LSE, London, UK.   I've already done two earlier posts on parts of the conference:

- one on Jon Snow's opening address - at which he gave some priceless advice (given the venue) "if you want to be a journalist don't do a journalism degree"

- and another on a conference session about Reporting Refugees  - from which I was reminded that "Good #storytelling isn't limited to simplified representations of reality"

Polis@LSE ‏@PolisLSE 4 minutes ago

Another great scribes on 'Reporting Refugees' from #Polis2016

This post is about some of the ideas that came out from the session on the UK referendum on Yes or No to EU membership

X


1) Its the economy stupid - part of the panel discussion  was on how the main thrust of the In campaign has focused on the economy and the bad effects on it if the UK exits the EU. At the same time it was mentioned that the Out campaign had been forced to battle on this economic ground as the "self governance" argument is seen as having little traction with voters.

One of the journalists from abroad on the panel commented on how much of UK political debate seemed to focus on economic matters.  Others on the panel pointed out the effect the economic arguments had in helping the Stay campaign in the Scottish referendum - and indeed in the Conservatives gaining sole power at the last general election.  

A final thread of this part of the discussion was on the stories that hadn't been reported:

- the UK's impact on the EU (e.g. on competition policy/free trade);
- the role of the EU in helping to maintain peace in Europe;
- how the EU institutions actually work (because its a hard story to make interesting?).

This part of the debate led me to make a mental note ...

2) Fact checking and the echo chamber of social media - One of the panel described "the Facebook echo chamber where people hear views they agree with echoed back to them"

This theme of confirmation bias came up in this and at least one other of the conference sessions.

Katie DeRosa ‏@katiemderosa  

#Polis2016 panel on reporting on #Brexit @AnneApplebaum said social media can be a "fact free ghetto" where people only hear what they want

What I didn't hear pointed out is how the algorithms used in social media magnify this confirmation bias. For more on this see this post on facebook ... the takeaway from which is - social media amplifies confirmation bias because its algorithms are designed to present you with content you'll be interested in based on what you - and your friends - have already viewed, shared or liked.

This confirmation bias even seems remarkably robust against facts

Alice Klein ‏@alicerklein  

.@anneapplebaum runs #brexit fact checking project but judgement already being clouded by emotion, & often incorrect stats #Polis2016



3) The power of the UK media in framing debates - in comments about the Scottish referendum some on the panel said it showed how the power of mainstream media in the UK is weakening (but maybe this was also the anti-Westminster bubble effect in Scotland?)

However the French and German journalists on the panel both commented on how much more powerful than their press the UK press was in setting the agenda for debate. (An example given was how the European press perspective on the deal Cameron got was that he did very well. Yet most of the UK press promoted a "he didn't do well" storyline).

There was also a debate on the uniqueness of the BBC in the UK media landscape - the equivalent of which doesn't exist in many other European countries. The role of the BBC in occupying an unbiased position of presenting "on the one hand and on the other arguments" was seen to be fairly unique. But it also has some downsides ...

Sean Klein ‏@BXLSeanK  

@anneapplebaum tells #Polis2016 conf. BBC et al efforts 2b very fair sometimes make it hard for journos to dismiss some claims as wrong

And I heard one complaint (from the audience maybe) about "Those idiots on the Today programme setting the agenda"


4) Why didn't Cameron lower the voting age to 16 for the referendum? Was an interesting question asked but not answered. Particularly as there would be a higher likelihood of young people voting to stay in the EU - and not forgetting the effect such a move had in energising the debate in the Scottish referendum.

A side point made was that when 16 year olds are given the vote then schools can help educate them on how to vote (so what you do in a polling booth or with a postal vote) and help them actually register to vote. This is help not available to 18 year olds (or older) in their 1st voting opportunity. And maybe it is one of the factors that influence why so many younger voters don't vote - embarrassment about not knowing how to.