European court reverses Von der Leyen's decision to hide controversial messages about the Pfizer vaccine purchase

BrusselsA severe blow from European justice to the president of the European executive, Ursula von der Leyen. The General Court of the European Union (GCEU) ruled this Wednesday that Brussels should have agreed to make public the the messages exchanged by the President of the European Commission and the CEO of Pfizer between 2021 and 2022, Albert Bourla, to negotiate the mass purchase of vaccines at one of the most delicate moments of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thus, the court of first instance of the Luxembourg court has ruled in favor of the The New York Times, who requested access to these messages as documents of general interest, and overturns the European Commission's decision to deny this transparency request. "The European Commission did not provide any plausible explanation to justify not being in possession of the requested documents," the European Court's ruling states.

The executive led by Von der Leyen argued that it could not make public the messages requested by the The New York Times because it didn't have them, but the CJEU maintains that the newspaper has sufficient evidence to prove that these documents "existed." "They have managed to refute the presumption of nonexistence and non-possession of the requested documents," the ruling states, reproaching Brussels for "not simply stating that it does not have the messages in its possession," but rather for "providing credible explanations."

In this regard, the court asserts that the European Commission "did not explain in detail what investigation it allegedly conducted to find these documents" nor did it "clarify whether these messages had been deleted and, if so, whether the deletion was voluntary or automatic." Transparency guarantees that the media and citizens have access "as a general rule" and in "the most complete way possible" to all documents from the institutions.

The European Commission carried out a massive vaccine procurement process during the height of the pandemic, when there were fears that the European Union might run out of the drugs or, at least, that it might have access later than other world powers.

Although the German leader's swift reaction was applauded at the time, especially in institutions that are always accused of being slow to act, the publication of these text messages by the American newspaper raised a lot of dust and has become one of the most politically thorny issues. It was supposed to have been published in the run-up to the European elections last June, but was postponed to avoid any interference in the electoral process. It has called into question the "commitment to transparency" of Von der Leyen's administration and has avoided clarifying whether it will finally make the controversial messages public.