The EU’s second-highest judicial authority has determined that the EU Commission lacked transparency when negotiating Covid vaccine deals with pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca, finding no justifiable reasons for concealing details of contracts with these companies.
The ruling, handed down by the bloc’s General Court, pertains to purchasing agreements made by the EU Commission in 2020 and 2021 during the peak of the pandemic, which were worth “approximately €2.7 billion” ($2.95 billion), according to the court’s statement published on Wednesday.
In 2021, some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) requested access to documentation outlining the terms of these deals to ensure that public interest was protected and members of the EU negotiating team had no personal conflicts of interest. However, Brussels provided only partial access to redacted documents and refused to reveal the identities of the negotiating team’s members. The Commission argued that this level of secrecy was necessary to protect commercial interests and the decision-making process. The MEPs then took their case to the court.
The Commission did not give the public sufficiently wide access to the purchase agreements for Covid-19 vaccines,” the court said in its statement. The Commission did not demonstrate that wider access to those clauses would actually undermine the commercial interests of those undertakings.
The court also found that the Commission had failed to adequately consider all relevant circumstances when weighing up interests related to the absence of a conflict of interest and the risk that individuals’ right to privacy might be infringed. The ruling partially upheld two cases against Brussels and annulled the Commission’s decisions to withhold the data from the public, stating that these decisions “contain irregularities.
Brussels reacted promptly to the judgment, which came just two days before a European Parliament vote on Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for a second term as EU Commission head. Text messages between her and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla about one of the contracts were among the contentious points between the Commission and MEPs earlier. The lawmakers demanded access to these messages, but Brussels maintained that she had not retained them.
In general, the Commission grants the widest possible public access to documents, in line with the principles of openness and transparency,” the court said in a statement, adding that it “only partially upheld the legal action on two points” and “confirmed that the Commission was entitled to provide only partial access.
In response, Brussels stated that it would “carefully study” the decision and “reserve its legal options.” The EU Commission can still appeal the decision to the European Court of Justice – the bloc’s highest judiciary body.