The Court of Justice of the European Union decided today that the European Commission did not provide the public with sufficiently broad access to the Covid-19 vaccine contracts and found irregularities in its justification for redacting certain parts of the documents, reports the Politico.
The verdict was made one day before the decisive vote: Ursula von der Leyen must get the support of 361 members of the European Parliament on Thursday to be confirmed again as the head of the European Commission, Mandiner wrote.
The case was brought up by a group of Greens MEPs spread it who requested access to the vaccine contracts and certain related documents in order to understand the 2021 agreement between the committee and the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers.
The committee was only partially willing to provide insight into certain contracts, citing the protection of commercial interests and data protection reasons.
The MEPs then took the case to court.
On Wednesday, the EU’s highest administrative court ruled that the committee’s decision to simply cut out certain sections of the contracts from the published version is illegal. It also found that the committee had not demonstrated that wider access to the said clauses would actually undermine the commercial interests of the said businesses.
Cover photo: Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, at the press conference held at the European Union summit in Brussels at dawn on June 28, 2024 (Photo: MTI/EPA/Olivier Hoslet)
Source: magyarnemzet.hu
