Welby slams EU’s anti-Christian action in implementing Article 16

Jan 30, 2021 by

by Archbishop Cranmer:

Yesterday the EU unilaterally implemented Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to prevent Covid vaccines leaving the EU for the UK. They did this because the UK has more vaccines than the EU and has vaccinated more of its population than all EU member states combined, principally because Matt Hancock signed a contract with AstraZeneca three months before the EU did, and some of his best vaccine bets are reaping dividends.

So, less than a month after the Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed, and the EU (along with the USA) insisted there could be no hard border on the island of Ireland, the EU erected one overnight – without consulting (indeed, without even informing) the Government of the Republic of Ireland.

So much for EU member-state sovereignty.

Indeed, so much for UK-EU Brexit deal.

Article 16 has specific conditions:

Article 16 Northern Ireland Protocol

For the EU, the fact that the UK is winning the vaccine race creates ‘serious societal difficulties’, and the necessary ‘safeguard measure’, they judge, is to ban the export of vaccines from the EU, despite the UK being in possession of a contract for them to be supplied. It is hard to see the EU as a ‘good faith’ actor in this dispute; indeed, when the Archbishop of Canterbury has to remind them of the EU’s foundation of Catholic Social Teaching, the inference is that their behaviour is not only un-neighbourly, but anti-Christian. Setting aside the fact that they manifestly have no respect for commercial contracts, international treaties or the rule of law, they think Brexit gives them the right to ride roughshod over the rights and welfare of British citizens.

By this hostile action, the EU actually breached the Good Friday Agreement, and so imperiled the peace process.

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