The European Commission was wrong to refuse the publication f Ursula von der Leyen’s text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during the Covid-19 pandemic, an EU court found Wednesday.
Reporters had asked to see messages between the Commission president and the Pfizer boss which they exchanged ahead of a multibillion euro vaccine deal agreed between pharmaceutical company and the EU.
The judgment delivers a massive blow to von der Leyen’s reputation and was seen as a victory for transparency and accountability.
In a statement, the EU’s General Court said the Commission had “failed to explain in a plausible manner why it considered that the text messages exchanged in the context of the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines did not contain important information … the retention of which must be ensured.”
The issue is whether text messages should be classed as documents and therefore eligible to be published in the name of transparency. While campaigners and observers say they should be treated like any other means of official communication when related to policymaking, the Commission did not agree.
“Transparency has always been of paramount importance for the Commission and President von der Leyen,” the Commission said in a statement after the ruling. “We will continue to strictly abide by the solid legal framework in place to enforce our obligations.” It said it would “decide on next steps.”
The existence of the texts came to light during an interview von der Leyen gave with the New York Times in 2021.
The EU executive told a preliminary hearing last year that their contents of the messages weren’t important enough to be classed as documents which is why they weren’t registered and available to be released to journalists.
The case was personally and legally tricky for von der Leyen because she personally signed off on the bloc’s largest vaccine contract, and lso presides over the Commission which enforces EU law and includes principles of transparency and accountability.
The vaccine deal, finalized in May 2021, involved the EU committing to purchase up to 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, the largest by far of all the deals signed by Brussels.
