European Court to Disclaim FON Laen Messages with Picker Director

The European Court will decide today whether the European Commission was right when it refused to publish text messages between President Ursula von der Leyen and Piroser’s CEO of Pirizer Albert Burl.

The lawsuit was filed by the New York Times and their journalist Matina Stevis-Gridf, claiming that the Commission had violated transparency rules after refusing to hand over the messages upon request.

According to the New York Times, personal contact between von der Leyen and Burl was crucial to reaching a billion-euro deal for the purchase of Kovid-19 vaccines at the top of the pandemic.

In the spring of 2021, the Commission, on behalf of the 27 EU member states, concluded a contract for up to 1.8 billion doses of up to 35 billion euros.

The plaintiffs demanded access to all messages exchanged between von der Leyen and Burl from January 1, 2021 to 11 May 2022, but the request was rejected on the grounds that « such documents do not exist ».

The way the Commission handled the vaccine procurement contracts was criticized, and in 2022 the European Ombudsman strongly condemned the reaction of the Commission to the requirements for access to the messages.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is also investigating how EU coronavirus vaccines were bought.