British Taxpayers Funded EU Factory at Heart of Vaccine Row

British taxpayers have invested millions of pounds into a Dutch vaccine factory at the center of a threatened blockade by the European Commission, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Helix factory in Leiden was equipped to produce doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, approved a major investment last April.

The money – reported to be in the region of £21 million – was meant to secure vital shipments to the UK. But Brussels has threatened to ban exports and on Thursday vowed there would be "no negotiation" with Downing Street, insisting that the doses should be diverted to European nations. 

A leaked letter revealed that Oxford scientists urged a major EU nation to invest in the Halix factory alongside the UK last April, but the deal was never signed. 

The European Union would have been likely to have secured millions of AstraZeneca doses had the Dutch government acted more decisively, sources suggested. An EU official admitted the bloc had yet to contribute a single euro towards the Halix plant.

MPs suggested on Thursday night that Downing Street should ask for its money back. Steve Baker, the deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group, said: "We invested in this plant. We have contractual entitlements to vaccines. If the EU disagrees with those entitlements, they have the option of going to court.

"Even in my worst Eurosceptic moments, I would never have dreamt the EU would behave like this." 

The news that Britain funded the very vaccine factory now at the center of the EU blockade comes as a major shortfall in AstraZeneca supplies threatens to disrupt the successful UK rollout.

GPs have been told to stop administering first doses this month and focus their vaccine resources primarily on those awaiting their second jabs. Downing Street says the UK remains on target to vaccinate all adults by July.

The Government has entered into negotiations with the EU over the doses produced at the Halix plant, which gained approval from the European regulator last week. Sources said the factory was ready to produce five million doses of raw vaccine every month.

But Thierry Breton, the EU's internal market commissioner, warned that "zero" jabs would be sent to the UK until AstraZeneca had fulfilled its commitments to Brussels, even after Germany suspended routine use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged below 60 because of fears of rare blood clots.

"If [AstraZeneca] does more, we don't have any issue, but as long as it doesn't deliver its commitment to us, the doses stay in Europe," Mr. Breton said. "There is no negotiation."


Source: Telegraph
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