The EU could've issued an export ban for Covid vaccines like the US and UK did but did not want to. There would have been 34 million more doses available until the end of March if they had done it.
But even in these times, the EU rather supports their allies than revert to nationalism. It could pay dividends in the future.
The UK does not formally restrict exports but it didn't export a single dose to the EU despite AZ telling the EU that they would. This lead to the export controls the EU put in place where the EU can forbid exports into countries that don't export themselves. AZ exported 9 million doses into the UK, the UK didn't export a single dose back.
The UK most likely sent them to Australia because Italy blocked AZ exports to Australia.
The AZ doses that the EU did not receive were from plants based in the EU run by European companies fulfilling AZ production. The UK government even invested £55m over a year ago in one such EU-based plant to bring its capacity up after the Dutch government didn't.
I completely agree. USA has been hoarding millions of doses of then unapproved AstraZeneca (in USA) while central Europe was hit so hard my home city was thinking about changing Hockey stadium to giant morgue since they run out of capacity.
UK received millions of dozes of AZ from European factory, it was never the case other way around.
I may be biased, and I would like to be wrong here. Please tell me how USA and UK helped Europe with vaccines, how they did not succumb into deepest nationalism.
I never witness somebody from USA or UK acknowledge this. Only some comment from Canadians being grateful that they receive vaccines from Europe while USA is not exporting any. (I know this changed later and they started export to Mexico)
The economic damage to their mistake to do that is will be way larger than any small savings on doses.