EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly lambasted the European Commission on Friday, January 28, following its refusal to release to the press text messages exchanged by its president, Ursula von der Leyen, with the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, on purchases of vaccines against Covid-19.
Ursula von der Leyen says she can’t find her text messages anymore
Last April, the New York Times published an article in which the daily revealed the existence of text messages sent for a month between the CEO of Pfizer and the President of the European Commission, in the context of negotiations on a contract to purchase 1.8 billion doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19.
A journalist asked the European Commission to forward these repeated exchanges to him. The EU executive, which was in charge of negotiating vaccine purchases on behalf of member states, agreed to send him three documents: an email, a letter and a press release, but… no SMS.
The Commission has communicated that it has no recording of these text messages, stressing that they are not governed by the regulations relating to the transparency of the European institutions and that they are therefore not intended to be kept.
An argument that did not convince the EU mediator, Emily O’Reilly, who criticized this Friday, January 28 at the European institution for having refused to communicate information on these SMS and asked that the cabinet of ‘Ursula von der Leyen proceeds to ” further research with a view to disclosing its content, in accordance with the transparency rules applicable to EU documents.
An investigation reveals that the Commission did not carry out any search for these SMS
Seized by the journalist, the mediator had launched an investigation revealing that the Commission had not explicitly asked the members of the President’s cabinet to search for these text messages, preferring instead to ask them to search for the type of documents subject to internal registration criteria. : text messages do not fit into these criteria.
« No attempt was made to identify whether the text messages in question existed. This way of acting does not meet expectations in terms of transparency “, criticized the mediator.
In a response to this inquiry, the Commission argued that these messages are “ by nature documents of short life, which do not normally contain important information relating to the policies, activities and decisions of the Commission ».
“Access to EU documents is a fundamental right. »
An opinion that is not shared by the mediator. For her, ” it’s clear »Than the texts« fall within the framework of European legislation on public access to documents », car « it is the content of the document that matters and not the medium or the form “. Consequently, ” the public may have access to them if they relate to the work of the institution “, adding that” access to EU documents is a fundamental right. »
She therefore called on the European administration to ” update its procedures for registering documents to be in line with current practices. »
“This case is more important than a simple exchange of SMS”
If the Commission finds these messages, it will have to assess whether they meet the criteria under EU law on access to documents to be disclosed “, she concludes in her recommendations, which are however not binding. The Commission has until April 26 to respond.
Key aspects of contracts with laboratories, in particular prices, are confidential. A lack of transparency which has drawn strong criticism from several MEPs and NGOs.
« This case is more important than a simple text exchange said Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld (Renew Europe). ” The European Commission has become less transparent, less accountable to the European Parliament and frankly more disconnected from European democracy “, she says, calling on the European Parliament to react.
Ursula von der Leyen already affected by an identical case dating from 2019
Three weeks after taking office as head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen had already been overtaken by a similar case.
Due to the use of highly paid external advisers by the German Ministry of Defense for which she was responsible, a parliamentary commission of inquiry had been created to shed light on this affair. As part of their investigation, the deputies who are members of the committee wanted to have access to data from Ms. von der Leyen’s mobile phone.
See also: European Parliament: “Half of the contracts with Pfizer are redacted”
But these were removed in August, a month after his departure from the German government and his appointment as head of the European Commission, the representative of the Ministry of Defense had indicated to the commission of inquiry.
« The decision to erase [les données d’un] mobile phone without it having been established that it could be used as evidence falls outside the scope of the normal disputes that necessarily exist between a government and a parliamentary commission of inquiry. There, it is a manifest scandal “, had reacted the deputy Tobias Lindner, member of this commission.
On Twitter, the controversy surrounding the secret exchange between the CEO of Pfizer and the President of the Commission has been commented on by Internet users. Jean Quatremer, European correspondent for the newspaper Liberation and virulent critic of health policy, joked about the “unfortunate” clumsiness of Ursula von der Leyen.
Conspiratorial friends, news from @vonderleyen : the European mediator condemns the probable destruction of text messages exchanged with the CEO of Pfizer relating to the purchase of vaccines. Because text messages are included in the obligation of transparency https://t.co/WIjwNfdDBu pic.twitter.com/OtFZIj8qEk
— Jean Quatremer (@quatremer) January 28, 2022
For his part, the president of the Patriots Florian Philippot judged that this case should ” stimulate the debate on Frexit ».
Let’s see if this capital subject, which concerns destroyed text messages between the President of the European Commission and the CEO of Pfizer, will make the front page in France! It should!
And that should stimulate the debate on the #Frexit ! https://t.co/P3ZFBz3ezY— Florian Philippot (@f_philippot) January 28, 2022