Von der Leyen and Pfizer: Will SMS messages about vaccines see the light of day?

The Court of Justice of the EU will announce a judgment on Wednesday that could change the rules on transparency in the activities of the European Commission. The case concerns the hidden correspondence between Ursula von der Leyen and the head of Pfizer regarding the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. This could be a breakthrough moment for EU transparency standards.

On Wednesday, a decision will be made whether European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will have to disclose text messages she exchanged with Albert Bourla, the head of Pfizer, during negotiations on COVID-19 vaccines. This concerns a huge contract from May 2021, in which the EC reserved 1.8 billion doses of the vaccine for European Union countries.

The case was brought to the EU General Court, a lower court of the Court of Justice of the European Union, by the American newspaper The New York Times and its correspondent Matina Stevis. In 2022, she requested access to the correspondence, but the EC refused, saying that the text messages were too “ephemeral” to be subject to document transparency rules.

The deputy head of the European Commission, Věra Jourová, argued that such communication is not archived and is not subject to public disclosure. Brussels defended itself in the same way before the EU court.

The prevailing belief among EU officials is still that the contract with Pfizer was a huge success.

In his opinion, Pfizer was the only company that was able to provide the appropriate number of doses and adapt vaccines to new variants of the virus.

Although the case concerns events from four years ago, its significance may be long-term. The court is to decide how far the EC's transparency obligations extend – also in the context of informal forms of communication, such as text messages. The judgment may set new standards of transparency in contacts between EU politicians and pharmaceutical companies.

The EU General Court's verdict is due to be announced on Wednesday. If the verdict is in favour of the journalists, the European Commission may be forced to disclose the controversial correspondence. This could shed new light on the backstage of one of the largest healthcare contracts in the history of the European Union.