The European Commission has only granted partial access to the contracts, arguing that some parts were redacted for commercial interests or to protect privacy. The MEPs then went to court to refuse the disclosure. The CJEU ruled on Wednesday that the European Commission’s decision to revise certain sections of the contracts was partly irregular, and that the EU’s executive body had not proven that wider access to those clauses would undermine the commercial interests of the companies concerned.
The verdict it was born a day before Ursula von der Leyen is to face a decisive vote in the European Parliament to become the head of the European Commission for another term. On Thursday, he needs to get the support of 361 MEPs to be re-confirmed as head of the European Commission.
The background to the current scandal is that the Commission led by von der Leyen negotiated joint EU vaccine procurement with Pfizer on behalf of the member states and purchased vaccines worth 2.4 billion euros, with an option to purchase an additional 900 million doses.
The Commission has not been entirely transparent in negotiating vaccine contracts: a New York Times report published in April 2021 revealed phone calls and text messages between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in which vaccine contracts were discussed. A journalist, Alexander Fanta, submitted a request to the Commission seeking access to the content of these text messages, but the Brussels body responded that it could not identify the documents that were the subject of the request.
Following the European Commission’s response, Emily O’Reilly, the European Ombudsman, launched an investigation, which found maladministration in the handling of Fanta’s application. In January 2023, The New York Times took the EU executive to the European Court of Justice after it failed to hand over the transcripts and messages to them. The lack of transparency of vaccine deals also angered the legislators of the European Parliament, who requested clarification and transparency of the matter with more than 20 parliamentary inquiries submitted to the Commission.
Because of the contradiction, they called for Pfizer representatives to be banned from entering the European Parliament, which was ultimately rejected by the Parliament’s presidential conference. In March 2023, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides appeared before Parliament’s special committee on COVID-19 (COVI) to engage in a heated exchange with MEPs, during which she insisted that von der Leyen was not involved in the negotiations on the Covid vaccine contract.
Cover image source: Portfolio
Source: www.portfolio.hu
