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The EU’s top court said Monday it will hear a case next month over the publication of private text messages sent by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to negotiate the purchase of coronavirus vaccines. did.
The lawsuit centers on messages von der Leyen exchanged with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at the height of the pandemic to help arrange the EU’s giant vaccine purchase.
The exchange was revealed by The New York Times in 2021.
The contents of the message have not been made public, and last year a U.S. newspaper sued the European Commission for not publishing the text despite requests for freedom of information.
On Monday, a spokesperson for the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that the paper’s complaint would be heard on November 15.
Both parties will be able to present their arguments at the hearing, a spokesperson said. A decision is expected to take several months.
A spokeswoman for the commission said executive agencies from 27 countries were “preparing” for the hearing.
Following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the EU moved quickly to ensure member states had vaccines available for their citizens and residents at a time when there was huge demand for vaccinations globally.
The committee selected Pfizer as the primary supplier.
However, many aspects of procurement are kept secret, leading to several lawsuits in Belgian and EU courts alleging a lack of transparency.
In January 2022, the EU’s ombudsman said the European Commission was guilty of “mismanagement” for failing to identify and publish such text messages.
He also said that if the messages existed, they should be subject to the EU’s transparency rules for official documents, which von der Leyen disputes.
Her committee rejected Freedom of Information requests for the text messages and refused to even say whether they existed, even though von der Leyen herself mentioned them in media interviews.
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