EU Commission hid details from public about Covid-19 vaccine contracts – court

Brussels was not transparent enough about deals with Pfizer, AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical firms, according to a judicial ruling

The EU’s second highest judicial body has decided that the EU Commission has not been transparent enough about Covid vaccine deals with pharma giants such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and had no legitimate reasons to conceal certain details of contracts with them.

The ruling by the bloc’s General Court covers purchase agreements struck by the EU Commission in 2020 and 2021, at the height of the pandemic, and worth “approximately €2.7 billion” ($2.95 billion), according to the court’s statement published on Wednesday.

In 2021, some MEPs requested access to the documents detailing the terms of the deals to make sure that the public interest was protected and the members of the EU negotiating team had no personal conflict of interest.

Brussels only provided them with partial access to redacted documents and refused to reveal the negotiating team’s members. The Commission argued that was necessary to protect commercial interests and the decision-making process. The MEPs then brought the issue to the court.

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“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 ruled that “the Commission did not take sufficient account of all the relevant circumstances in order to weigh up correctly the interests at issue, related to the absence of a conflict of interests and a risk that the right of privacy of the persons concerned might be infringed.” The ruling partly upheld two cases against Brussels and annulled the Commission’s decisions to withhold the data from the public, arguing that such decisions “contain irregularities.”

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Brussels promptly reacted to the judgement, which came just two days before a European Parliament vote on Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for a second term as the EU Commission head. Text messages between her and the Pfizer boss about one of the contracts were one of the points of contention between the Commission and the MEPs earlier. The lawmakers demanded access to them, but Brussels maintained that she had not retained the messages.

“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.”

Brussels also stated that it would “carefully study” the decision and that it “reserves its legal options.” The EU Commission can still appeal the decision to the European Court of Justice – the bloc’s highest judiciary body.