Eu

There have always been those on the European side who believe that for the EU project to succeed, Brexit must fail and must be seen to fail. So it is a problem that the first major act of Brexit Britain — going its own way to obtain and approve vaccines — appears to have been a success. For this reason, EU leaders must cast doubt on the achievement. As I say in the magazine this week, look at how Clément Beaune, Macron’s Europe Minister, went out of his way to tweet out his criticisms of the UK approach. (To be fair, there is a Brexiteer version of this hostile sentiment. You can find those on the Tory backbenches who think that Britain’s success requires the EU’s failure.

Boris Johnson has made his Brexit negotiator David Frost a full member of the Cabinet and the UK chair of both the partnership council, which manages the UK/EU trade deal, and the joint committee, which handles the Northern Ireland protocol. Frost’s appointment is a recognition that someone is needed at the heart of government to handle the EU relationship – that it can’t be treated as simply a Foreign Office matter, and that it needs to be a full-time job (Michael Gove had previously been the UK chair of these committees). The challenge for Frost will be to get out of the negotiations mindset. The withdrawal negotiations and the trade talks were necessarily tough and Frost pushed hard.

It was meant to be a special relationship. After the tumultuous Trump years, President Biden was planning to reset relations with the European Union, Inherently liberal, rules-based, and engaged with climate change, it would be a natural ally, and far more so than a UK still tainted by Brexit. The Biden team were no doubt looking forward to working closely with officials in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin to repair the damage of the last four years and put the world on a more rational course.  But hold on. It is not going according to plan. There are already reports that the White House is growing increasingly frustrated with the EU. And in truth, that rift is only going to get wider and wider in the months to come.

Ursula von der Leyen now admits that she overreacted in the EU’s vaccine row with the UK. She has spoken of her ‘regret’ that Article 16 of the Northern Ireland border protocol was triggered by the European Commission in a Friday night fit of pique at the end of last month. But there is a sense in Brussels that the British are still trying to exploit her misstep. This claim is not entirely baseless. The UK is getting increasingly worried about the protocol, and clearly does see a chance to push for concessions now that the Commission has surrendered the moral high ground. The Northern Ireland protocol was agreed by Boris Johnson as he struggled to get a Brexit deal in time for the 2019 general election. The bureaucracy it causes is already leading to problems.

Since the outrage caused last Friday, when the European Union looked set to undermine the Northern Ireland protocol less than one month after the Brexit deal came into force, there has been little apology from those in charge. This is not terribly surprising: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has a reputation for passing the buck whenever possible. It’s also thought that last week’s mistakes are particularly hard for the EU to grapple with: desperate to prove Brexit was a mistake, it has been difficult for Brussels to watch Britain's reputation for handling the Covid crisis change so quickly for the better. Yesterday we got a hint of acknowledgement from von der Leyen that perhaps there are some benefits to being outside the EU.

The next Northern Ireland assembly election must take place by 5 May next year. The MLAs voted in then will decide whether or not to continue the Northern Ireland protocol, which requires the UK authorities to apply EU rules on various goods entering Northern Ireland. If a majority voted against (that is all that would be needed as the petition of concern, which requires a higher threshold, would not apply), then the protocol would fall. At the moment, it looks very unlikely that the election will result in an anti-protocol majority. But it would clearly be bad for stability in Northern Ireland if the campaign turned into an attempt by Unionists to rally a majority that could vote down the protocol.

In the aftermath of the EU's vaccine bungle, Brussels remains in damage limitation mode, determined to ensure that someone else gets the blame for its own crisis. But Mr S wonders whether top EU diplomat Martin Selmayr's bid to put a positive spin on what has unfolded over the last few days was really so wise. Selmayr, who revelled in his nickname 'the Rasputin of Brussels' during his time serving as Jean-Claude Juncker's aide, attempted to make a comparison between Europe's vaccine rollout rate and that of Africa, the poorest continent on Earth. Selmayr, who now serves as the EU Commission representative in Austria, wrote: 'The EU, thanks to the joint work of 27 governments, EU Commission, researchers and companies vaccinated 12 million people in 3 weeks.

A year ago today Britain awoke to a rather muted celebration – which seemed to consist largely of a bubble car driving around Parliament Square with a Union Jack in tow – ready to face up to a brave new future outside the EU. Who would have imagined then that the Observer would mark the first anniversary by running a leading article condemning the EU as 'shambolic' and instead praising Boris Johnson’s government for something Britain did all by itself? Of course, the Observer’s judgement is only in respect to one thing: the EU’s joint vaccination procurement programme. Nevertheless, it is something rather important, on which a great number of people’s lives are dependent.