It’s been almost three years now the coronavirus pandemic broke out and, from the beginning, the scientific community worked to find a vaccine that would serve for immunize the world population against covid, which was then a practically unknown disease. This vaccine arrived in record time and from different pharmaceutical companies: in less than a year, vaccination of the population had already begun. In Europe, the vials were purchased centrally and it was the European Commission that was in charge of distributing them. Now, the prestigious newspaper The New York Times has focused on an exchange of messages between the president of this body and the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the Greek Albert Bourla, when in Europe he was negotiating the purchase of vaccines.
Von der Leyen hid these telephone messages with Bourla and the American newspaper wants the president of the European Commission to go to court for this lack of transparency, as he has advanced Politico. For now, the first step has been taken by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has opened a case as a result of the newspaper’s lawsuit against the community executive, which remains silent about the content of the messages between Von der Leyen and the pharmacist. According to Politicothe newspaper argues that the Commission has a legal obligation to publish messages that may contain information about the million-dollar purchase of vaccines against covid-19 from this pharmaceutical company.
Von der Leyen, questioned by the lack of vaccines
The first information about these controversial messages dates back to 2021, when the New York newspaper reported the telephone conversations between the president and Bourla, in full negotiation of vaccination. Then, he assured that this exchange of words had played a key role in the purchase, which Von der Leyen herself boasted of on April 21, 2021, anticipating that the Commission was negotiating with Pfizer to acquire 1,800 million additional doses against covid. That made it the most important global purchase of these vials until then. At that time, vaccination had already started, but the doses were still coming slowly and it had not been possible to open it to all age groups. Although the states were prepared to vaccinate the population more quickly, they could not do so, since there were not enough vaccines for everyone, a fact that contrasts with today, when the doses expire. All this caused Von der Leyen was criticized and she herself tried to remedy it with this exchange of messages.
After what The New York Times report on the talks, the German journalist Alexander Fanta asked the Commission to be able to access the messages and other documents that the president and CEO of Pfizer had shared. However, he was only given a letter, an email and a press release. This response did not satisfy the journalist, who insisted on the Commission, but the institution replied months later, assuring that no other document existed. Fanta decided to file a complaint with the EU Ombudsman, who agreed with him. “No attempt was made to identify whether there was any text message, which does not meet reasonable expectations of transparency and administrative standards (…) It is not necessary to save and record all messages, but they are clearly subject to European transparency and, therefore, the relevant ones have to be registered”, concluded Emily O’Reilly.
Despite these words from the ombudsman, the Commission insisted that the messages had been deleted, since “they are not intended to contain important information related to the policies, activities and decisions of the Commission”, when Sophie in ‘t Veld MEP (in charge of the Pegasus committee) asked about these facts. whatever, now The New York Times has taken a new step forward by taking the messages to the European courts.