> There are independence tensions within European countries (eg. Spain/Basque, UK/Scotland). > You have to be a blind idealist to think this would work

You are confusing independence from nationalism. They are very different things and you can have the first without the second.

What is wrong with the EU handling of COVID crisis? We have vaccinated more people than the US and there was no major breakout since summer 2020. In constrast with the UK where restrictions have been draconic.

EU botched acquiring vaccine compares to most developed countries by months, in no small part due to the retarded mindset that pharma companies shouldn't profit off of this and trying to renegotiate prices forever (overriding some countries who tried to acquire it individually and would have gotten it faster).

Measures were not dictated by EU, each country decided it's own policy.

Pharma companies should not profit off pandemics. It is an ethical thing to do. And beside that, I know that drug companies are heavily subsidised by state and their research is mostly done with tax-exempt money.

Profit is the strongest market incentive, you want them to profit and invest full on in this kind of research. And pharma profits insanely is still negligible to the loss due to delaying vaccine deployment, spending any nin-trivial amount of time negotiating prices is full on retarded from that perspective, not to mention protecting vulnerable groups ASAP.

The only large countries that did better were the UK and US due to banning the export of vaccines. It's mainly the UK trying to spin this as a propaganda win after BREXIT.

What other comparable developed countries are there ? Australia had it's own isolation thing so it's a different context entirely.

Russia had vacation faster, China as well.

Japan and South Korea for instance, but what's your point?

That some EU members had deals for faster delivery and got overturned by EU causing a worse situation for those countries, just like UK would if it was a part of EU.

Von der Leyen even said so herself, and she still believes it was the right thing to do to stifle the big countries in order to maintain the EU.

If Germany or the Netherlands decided to ban exports on vaccines they'd probably have had the highest vaccination rates on the planet. But that would just be selfish. Stifling big countries in favor of a fair distribution of vaccines WAS the right thing.

What if some US state with most of the vaccine manufacturing had stopped the export of vaccine over state borders? Would that be fine by you because it's in their self interest?

Hardly Japan (it being a disconnected island nation)

> Russia had vacation faster, China as well.

No, they did not. Here's a site where you can see the share of people vaccinated against COVID-19: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

> Russia had vacation faster, China as well.

... Wait, what makes you think that? Per OurWorldInData, except for a brief period in early January, EU total doses per capita have always been ahead of Russia and China, until June, when China drew ahead (Russia is still _far_ behind). And even then, that wasn't supply-driven; if you consider EU countries with high vaccine acceptance (Ireland, Germany, Denmark etc), those are still ahead of China; China overtook the EU as a whole due to vaccine reluctance in parts of the EU.

Norway, Canada, Switzerland etc.

Not UK’s fault if whatever the EU does ends up a mess, whether trying to name a corridor in a Brussels building, or trying to have The European GPS up and running.

Normal, with 27 participants all responding to different national and political interests. Try having a flatshare with 27 families and agreeing on how to paint the wall.

> EU botched acquiring vaccine compares to most developed countries by months, in no small part due to the retarded mindset that pharma companies shouldn't profit off of this and trying to renegotiate prices forever

Eh, that's a dubious narrative. In practice, Europe made an at the time fairly reasonable-looking bet on the wrong horse; significant production problems were expected with mRNA vaccines, while no-one really expected big problems with viral vector vaccines.

As it turned out, mRNA production went amazingly smoothly (to the point that overdelivery by Pfizer/Biontec largely saved the EU programme) while viral vector production was a _disaster_. If AZ and J&J had been able to deliver what they planned, or even modestly underdeliver, the issue of contracts would not have arisen.