The European Commission does not match that the release of release by von der Leyen says the court star-news.press/wp

The European Commission was not to refuse to publish text messages by Ursula von der Leyen to the Head of Pfizer during negotiations on safe vaccines in the EU, a top court ruled.

Said the General Court The Commission did not provide a persuasive explanation of why the exchange between her President and Pfizer Albert Bourle could not be publicly published when the investigative journalist requested 2021. years.

That year, Pfizer signed billions of euros in vaccine contracts with the EU, including an agreement for 1.8 billion dose.

The content of messages between Von der Leyen and Mr. Bourle remains a secret, in a simmer case, which became known in Brussels as Pfizergat.

Transparency International’s Anti-Corruption Group welcomed the Judgment of the European Court as “Tag of victory for transparency in the EU”Adding that this should serve as a catalyst to stop the “restrictive attitude towards the freedom of information”.

Von Der Leyen became the President of the Commission in 2019. year, and within a year of a year he faced the task of leading the EU response to Covid Pandemic.

She won the second five-year term at the end of last year. The decision on Wednesday threatens to make his reputation, due to the obvious lack of transparency of the circumstances of the Pfizer vaccine in which she played such a significant role.

The Commission said he would jump in the verdict and consider his next steps, but it insisted on it Transparency has “always been of the utmost importance“.

Controversy broke out in April 2021. year, when the journalist New York Matina Stevis discovered that Ursula von der Leyen negotiated in private with the Pfizerski boss after his German partner Biontech won regulatory approval.

The article was prompted by the Aleksandra Fanta Investigatory Journalist, who worked for the German publication, to use the request for freedom of information to see messages between 2021. and May 2022. Years. But from them in 2012. years, saying no document.

According to the Rules of Transparency of the Commission, all staff, including the President, must archive their documents.

However, mobile text messages are gray surfaces, and the case is largely joints whether they should consider them important records.

One EU Officer claimed that SMS messages were not “systematically regarded as public documents” and were not recorded as such.

Fanta is the case taken to the European Ombudsman 2021. years, where the query found that the Commission is failing to search for text messages Outside the usual record keeping amounted to an unfair extent.

Stevis and New York Times were followed, and when messages were not yet released, they took the European Commission in court.

The decision on Stevis Challenge, on Wednesday, said the EU executive rely relied “or assumptions or to change or inaccurate information, while the journalist and New York Times managed to refute their receivables.

The court said that if the assumption won, then there was a commission to prove that documents or did not exist or did not possess them.

The Commission did not explain whether the text messages were deleted or not, ruled, and if it was deleted, whether it was done intentionally or has changed its mobile phone since then.