The court will rule whether von der Leyen should disclose talks with Pfizer

Tribunal The EU Justice will rule on Wednesday on whether the European Commission was entitled to conceal correspondence that its president, Ursula von der Leyen, conducted with CEO of the American company Pfizer via SMS message. It was about a contract for vaccines against Covid-19.

Although the case concerns the agreement concluded by the EC with Pfizer four years ago, this verdict may have a significant impact on the future. It will decide to what extent the EC must be transparent in its activities.

The American daily “New York Times” filed a complaint against the EC to the CJEU and his journalist Matina Stevi, who in 2022 unsuccessfully demanded access to the talks von der Leyen held with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on vaccines. Under the third agreement with this American the company, which was concluded in May 2021, the EC reserved 1.8 million doses Covid-19 vaccines for all member states.

The belief still prevails among Brussels officials that this contract was one of the greatest successes of von der Leyen's first EC. As an EU source told journalists on Monday that Pfizer was at that time and it is probably still the only company that can provide what Europe needs number of doses. It also offered a vaccine that could be adapted to new variants of the virus. Other companies did not have such opportunities, and scientists announced that it would be necessary to repeat the vaccination due to the mutation virus.

"I'm biased, but I still think it was a great success, because by the end of summer 2021, 70% of the adult EU population was vaccinated" - the EU official argued. He emphasized that the EC also had full support of the member countries with which it was in contact.

However, the way in which von der Leyen has done this is controversial. led trade negotiations with Bourla. In April 2021, Pfizer CEO In an interview with the New York Times, he said that he had such a good relationship with the EC President that he exchanged messages via text messages. The correspondent The newspaper therefore asked the EC to provide the details of the conversations, but the EC refused. The then deputy head of the EC, Vera Jourova, defended herself by saying that "short-lived and ephemeral" messages are not archived and are not included in scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents. So too The EC defended itself before the CJEU.

The judgment will be issued on Wednesday by the General Court of the EU, the lower instance of the CJEU.

From Brussels Magdalena Cedro (PAP)

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