This argument is beyond ridiculous. It was the decision of health officials, and it wasn't just countries part of eu that have suspended AZ vaccinations.
That's an unusual way to write "The EU signed 3 months after the UK"
The AstraZeneca vaccine is also the only one with this kind of segregated supply chain, apparently as some kind of contingency plan against vaccine nationalism cutting off imports. All the others, the UK has been content to order from plants within the EU and trust that they won't pull some cynical, Trump-esque vaccine nationalism stunt and cut off exports to distract from their own problems. This appears to have been a serious misjudgement. (And to be clear, distracting from their own problems is pretty much all it would achieve. The UK is so much smaller than the EU that cutting off exports would give very little help to their own vaccine roll-out despite causing massive disruption to the UK one - and that's before even considering the possibility of retaliation.)
The UK is included in the contract of the EU the same way as the EU is included in the one of the EU. That's why there are discussions about the export of vaccine to begin with. Right now AZ exports a few millions of doses out of the EU to the UK.
> The US/UK contracts have a US/UK first clause whereas the EU's don't
True, and you can see how the UK gov is fearing the export block. Darned if the EU does, darned if it doesn't. But if doing means more vaccines to the EU so be it.
Though yes, it was probably a mistake treating AZ as a reliable partner and not someone who'll try find any excuses to skip on their obligations. Though it will be hard to convince a judge they're filling their "best effort" requirements
Given they had prior obligations to the UK, I'd say they've been a very reliable partner - to the extent of risking annoying a major market by saying no to the EU.