14-05-2025
Ursula von der Leyen was wrong to conceal vaccine texts to Pfizer boss, court rules
The European Commission was wrong to conceal messages between Ursula von der Leyen and the boss of Pfizer during negotiations over coronavirus vaccines, an EU court has found.
The EU body had refused to hand over the private correspondence between its president and Albert Bourla ahead of a multibillion-euro deal to procure jabs from the firm.
Judges at the European Court of Justice's General Court backed a legal challenge against the decision to withhold the contents of the messages.
Announcing its decision, the Luxembourg-based court said the Commission had 'not given a plausible explanation to justify the non-possession of the requested documents'.
'Moreover, the commission has not sufficiently clarified whether the requested text messages were deleted and, if so, whether the deletion was done deliberately or automatically or whether the president's mobile phone had been replaced in the meantime,' it added.
Journalists from The New York Times had asked the court to force the release of the conversations between Commission president Mrs von der Leyen and Pfizer's Mr Bourla from 2021.
Details of their exchanges could open up details of how costly their deal to procure millions of vaccines at breakneck speed was for European taxpayers.
The scandal, dubbed 'Deletegate', had already opened up scrutiny over how the EU's most senior officials are allowed to conduct business in private.
The private exchange between Mrs von der Leyen and Mr Bourla came at a time when the EU was scrambling for much-needed doses of coronavirus vaccines, with AstraZeneca struggling to fulfil its promised orders.
The EU chief eventually agreed to buy as many as 1.8 billion shots between 2021 and 2023 doses from Pfizer, in a deal The New York Times reported at the time had been negotiated by text.
Wednesday's ruling will serve as an embarrassing reminder for Mrs von der Leyen, who has always billed herself as an honest broker and business-like professional to lead the Commission.
While the ruling can be appealed, it is likely going to open a fresh can of worms over how text messages are treated in freedom of information cases in the future.
The Commission had never argued that the text messages had not existed, but argued that they were not deemed important for records to be properly kept.
The EU's executive branch had previously claimed that the messages had been deleted because of their 'short-lived, ephemeral nature'.
Transparency and anti-corruption campaigners said the ruling should prompt a significant reform to the Commission's freedom of information policies.
'Today's decision is a victory for transparency and accountability in the European Union, and it sends a powerful message that ephemeral communications are not beyond the reach of public scrutiny,' Nicole Taylor, of The New York Times, said.
In response to the ruling, the Commission said it would study the ruling and decide 'on next steps', which could include an appeal at the ECJ.
'Transparency has always been of paramount importance for the Commission and President von der Leyen,' it said.
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