Von der
Leyen faces critical test as EU court decides on secret ‘Pfizergate’ texts
Wednesday’s
General Court ruling will assess whether the European Commission is in breach
of transparency rules.
The case is
legally tricky for von der Leyen because she not only personally signed off on
the bloc’s largest vaccine contract — worth billions of euros — but she also
presides over the very institution tasked with enforcing EU law. | Michael
Kappeler/EPA
This article
is also available in: French
May 12, 2025
4:01 am CET
By Elisa
Braun and Mari Eccles
BRUSSELS ―
Ursula von der Leyen's legacy as European Commission president will face a huge
challenge this week when the EU court rules on secret text messages she
exchanged with the boss of a drug company that agreed a multibillion-euro
vaccine deal with Brussels.
In what's
set to be a reputation-defining judgment, the Court of Justice of the EU will
decide whether by refusing to release the contents of her text conversation
with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla the Commission breached transparency rules.
Not only
will Wednesday's "Pfizergate" decision in the lower-tier General
Court have sweeping implications for how the bloc's top officials conduct
business behind closed doors, it could also cast a shadow over von der Leyen's
second five-year term at the helm, which only started on Dec. 1. As she battles
to keep the Commission relevant amid nationalist rhetoric growing around the
bloc, she has already attracted criticism for her tendency to centralize power
and for rowing back on green-friendly commitments.
The nub of
the issue is whether text messages should be classed as documents and therefore
eligible to be published in the name of transparency. While campaigners and
many external observers say they should be treated just like any other means of
official communication when related to policymaking, the Commission says not.
Major
embarrassment
The case is
legally tricky for von der Leyen because she not only personally signed off on
the bloc’s largest vaccine contract — worth billions of euros — she also
presides over the very institution tasked with enforcing EU law, which includes
principles of transparency and accountability. If the court rules against her,
it would provide political ammunition to a wide range of critics.
It would
also be a major embarrassment given it's just a few months after she publicly
pledged to defend standards of transparency, efficiency and probity in her
second term.
“This court
ruling could mark a turning point for transparency in the EU,” said Shari
Hinds, EU policy officer for political integrity at the NGO Transparency
International. “When it comes to key decisions, particularly those affecting
public health, secrecy should be avoided.”
The case was
instigated by The New York Times and its former Brussels bureau chief, which
brought an action against the Commission’s decision not to release the text
messages in 2022.
The
existence of the messages was revealed in an April 2021 New York Times
interview, where Bourla described their exchanges as fostering “deep trust” and
facilitating the negotiation of a substantial vaccine deal. This agreement,
finalized in May 2021, involved the EU committing to purchase up to 1.8 billion
doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, the largest by far of all the
deals signed by Brussels.
It foresaw
the up-front purchase of 900 million doses, with the option to order 900
million more, for delivery in 2022 and 2023.
Wake-up call
The European
Ombudsman found in 2022 that the Commission’s failure to look for the text
messages in question amounted to maladministration. Emily O’Reilly, ombudsman
from 2013-2025 called it a “wake-up call” for the EU institutions.
She said
transparency had gone backward under von der Leyen’s reign.
The
agreement, finalized in May 2021, involved the EU committing to purchase up to
1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. | Caroline
Brehman/EPA-EFE
And she took
particular aim at von der Leyen herself, accusing the Commission president in
an interview with POLITICO last year of creating a culture of “holding things
back” for political reasons.
She also
criticized von der Leyen’s absence from the only court hearing held in the case
so far. “The elephant who wasn’t in the room,” she said. “The one person who
could tell us everything wasn’t there.”
In a
statement to POLITICO, the Commission said that it “does not comment on ongoing
legal procedures.”
Briefing
journalists on Monday, a Commission official said Europe's vaccine contracts
were all negotiated with the backing of EU countries. The EU's 27 members chose
seven countries to represent the bloc in the vaccine contract negotiations.
This team met every day, sometimes throughout the night: “We did all this
together every single day,” the official said, adding that countries were not
forced to sign up to the EU's contracts.
Judges at
the EU's General Court have already ruled against the Commission’s decision to
redact large parts of the vaccine contracts before making them available, which
the executive said it had done to protect staff privacy and companies’
commercial interests.
Tilly Metz,
one of the five Green members of the European Parliament to bring that case to
the General Court, questioned who or what was behind von der Leyen’s reluctance
to share information. “She gets bad advice there,” she said. “If you want the
public to be confident and trust the politicians and what they do — and the
contacts they do with industry — you have to put the focus on transparency.”
While she
acknowledged that the Covid-19 health crisis was a “very new situation” that
led to the Commission having to collaborate with industry, she believes that
von der Leyen failed to learn the right lessons from the pandemic.
Years of
ambiguity
As part of
the case to be decided on Wednesday, the court held a hearing in Luxembourg in
November. The court’s grand chamber signaled it was skeptical about the
Commission’s refusal to release the text messages.
After years
of ambiguity even about the existence of the messages, the Commission’s lawyers
— finally — acknowledged them. That triggered laughter among those in
attendance, and also impatience among the judges.
“We don’t
deny that they [the texts] exist,” said Commission lawyer Paolo Stancanelli
midway through the hearing.
The
Commission’s lawyer denied their importance, saying they would have kept them —
and potentially made them available — if they were related to the negotiations
of the contract with Pfizer.
Judges
showed signs of annoyance because the Commission repeatedly failed to explain
how it decided what is important or not, asking forensic questions the
Commission’s official was unable to answer: Did they ask von der Leyen directly
about the texts? Did they check her phone or invoices? Did they challenge the
head of her Cabinet?
After more
than three hours of debate, judges delivered blunt criticism of the
Commission’s responses and attitude to The New York Times’ request.
One judge,
José Martín y Pérez de Nanclares, said the executive had not shown “adequate
and diligent measures” to explain why they couldn’t share the texts. Another,
Paul Nihoul, slammed the “relatively confused dossier.”
Bondine
Kloostra, a lawyer for The New York Times, said it was “very disappointing how
unprepared” the Commission’s representative had been in the hearing.
“We still
don’t know what happened to the phone of VDL, whether messages or Signal
messages were exchanged through a laptop or any other device; we still don’t
know where the Commission searched,” she said.
Financial
crimes
The pressure
on von der Leyen is mounting beyond this ruling. The European Public
Prosecutor’s Office, tasked with investigating serious financial crimes against
the EU’s financial interests, confirmed that it has been investigating the
Commission on its handling of the vaccine procurements.
In March,
EPPO chief Laura Codruța Kövesi confirmed her office recently interviewed
Commission officials over how the vaccine negotiations were conducted.
EPPO said it
would not comment on an ongoing investigation.
UPDATE: This
story has been updated to clarify the Commission's statement and add details
from a Commission briefing on the topic.
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