Court rules on von der Leyen’s secret Covid vaccine deal messages

The European Commission acted improperly by refusing to release communications with Pfizer to the media, the ruling states

The European Commission wrongly denied the media access to secret text messages between its president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the CEO of pharma giant Pfizer, exchanged during negotiations of a multi-billion dollar Covid-19 vaccine deal, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Wednesday.

The so-called “Pfizergate” decision comes as a major embarrassment for the EU chief, who has responsibility for transparency and rule of law issues in the bloc.

The case centers on a 2021 interview von der Leyen gave to the NYT in which she claimed she had been negotiating a deal for 900 million COVID vaccine shots with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla via sms messages.

The NYT subsequently filed an access request for the messages, to which the EC claimed the texts, which have never been released, were not in its possession.

The court ruled that the EC “cannot merely state that it does not hold the requested documents but must provide credible explanations enabling the public and the Court to understand why those documents cannot be found.”

It also criticized the Commission for failing to justify why the texts were not retained and to clarify how they were deleted.

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In response, the EC said it recognized the need for greater transparency and promised to issue a new decision with more detailed reasoning. It did not, however, commit to releasing the messages in question. The ruling can be appealed to the European Court of Justice.

A similar CJEU judgment last July found that the EC lacked transparency in how it negotiated vaccine contracts with Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The deals, signed in 2020 and 2021 and worth approximately €2.7 billion ($3 billion), were shielded from disclosure to European Parliament members on the grounds of protecting commercial interests.