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Originally Posted by Chris
As I said - you don’t understand the EU and you never have.
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I'm not going to assess anyone's understanding of the EU but will just share the facts:
From Full Fact:
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WHAT WAS CLAIMED
The UK was able to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine more quickly because of Brexit.
OUR VERDICT
This is not correct. Under European law, the UK was permitted to act independently to approve the vaccine in an emergency.
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https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-vaccine-brexit/
From the Institute of Government:
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The UK could have followed the same course of vaccine action if it were an EU member
That said, none of these successes can be chalked up to Brexit. As the chief executive of the MHRA swiftly pointed out, Mr Hancock was wrong to say that the UK could approve the vaccine early because it was no longer subject to EU rules. The MHRA’s decision was taken in accordance with the relevant EU legislation, which allows member states to grant temporary authorisation for a medicinal product in response to the spread of infectious diseases (among others). [1] This legislation still applies to the UK until the end of the transition period. Any EU member state could have used the same provision of the legislation to approve the vaccine. They decided not to for political and technical reasons, not legal ones.
Similarly, the member states were in no way obliged to take part in the EU’s joint vaccine procurement scheme. The EU has very limited competences for public health under its founding treaties: it can take action only to “support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States”. The EU member states in this case voluntarily decided to opt into the joint procurement scheme. If one or more of them had decided to follow the UK’s path and procure its own vaccines, no one would have stopped them.
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https://www.instituteforgovernment.o...cisions-brexit