Transparency: vaccine deal via SMS? Of the Leyen is subject to court

The “New York Times” has achieved a clear victory in the legal dispute over the publication of SMS from EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The newspaper and her journalist had presented relevant clues to the existence of news between von der Leyen and the Pfizer boss Albert Bourla, judged the judges at the EU court in Luxembourg. The Commission, on the other hand, states at its point of view that there is no relevant messages that could be published – without reasonably justifying this.

The Commission must now be on a new request for disclosure of the “New York Times”. In addition, she can still contest the judgment at the European Court of Justice.

Text messages on billions of vaccine deals?

The focus is on a deal between the Commission and the vaccine manufacturer Biontech/Pfizer from the spring of 2021. The parties agreed on the delivery of up to 1.8 billion doses corona vaccine, the contract volume was estimated at the time at 35 billion euros. As the “New York Times” reported, personal contact between the Leyen and Pfizer boss Bourla was crucial for the end. They are also said to have communicated via SMS.

A journalist of the “New York Times” then applied with her newspaper to access all text messages that had exchanged the Leyen and Bourla between January 1, 2021 and May 11, 2022. The commission turned off on the grounds that there were no such documents in its possession.

Chancellor’s justification for the Commission

The judges made it clear that the commission’s answers were based on the request “either on hypotheses or on changing or inaccurate information”. You could not explain why the text messages were not in possession. If they have been deleted, this must also be explained sufficiently.

“The decision is a victory for transparency and accountability in the European Union and sends the clear message that fleeting communication is not outside public control,” said a spokeswoman for the “New York Times”. The Commission said that it would examine the judgment closely and enact a new decision that contains a more detailed explanation.

The judgment could work beyond the individual case

“The court has made it clear that authorities cannot simply say that they do not have certain documents,” said Christoph Brill, speaker in the Justiziad of the German Association of Journalists. “If the applicant can explain that the documents were present, the authority must explain more precisely why it no longer has or cannot find information requested.” The judgment continues to develop the case law in the sense of transparency and freedom of the press.

In the process with the “New York Times”, the Commission did not deny that Bourla and Leyen were in exchange by SMS. However, no SMS were found that were essential for the negotiations. Employees of the Commission would only have to archive chats and other documents if they are classified as important, according to the authority.

Greens speak of “hiding game” on the Leyens cell phone

During the pandemic, the EU Commission had negotiated and concluded contracts on hundreds of millions of doses vaccine on behalf of the Member States. The procedure was repeatedly criticized because the contracts were only partially made public or because there were delays in the delivery of the vaccine. Corona vaccine’s billion-dollar purchases also got into the visor of the European public prosecutor.

“The hide -and -seek game of Leyen’s cell phone must have an end,” said Daniel Freund, who is sitting for the Greens in the European Parliament. “Duty messages must be systematically saved, archived and, if necessary, disclosed.”

The focus of the Leyens SMS for the first time

For von der Leyen it is not the first affair about unexpected text messages. In her time as a German Defense Minister, the data on one of her cell phones were deleted. The Ministry of Defense justified the 2019 cell phone deletion with a “security occurrence”. Critics complained that this has lost evidence in the consultant affair, which dealt with allegations from incorrect awarding of order to nepotism.