Von der Leyen’s Commission dodges public responsibility over Pfizergate texts

LUXEMBOURG — The European Commission faced an embarrassing grilling for almost five hours on Friday as top EU judges cast doubt on the executive’s commitment to transparency on the Covid-19 vaccine negotiations.
The EU institution defended itself in a packed EU court in Luxembourg in the so-called Pfizergate case, brought by the New York Times and its former Brussels bureau chief Matina Stevis-Gridneff.
The outlet said the Commission was wrong to refuse access to the text messages shared between its President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla at the height of the Covid pandemic.
After years of ambiguity about the existence of the texts, the Commission — finally — acknowledged the pair had exchanged messages during the crisis.
But it denied their importance, saying they would have kept them — and potentially made them available — if they were related to the negotiations of the billion-euro contract with Pfizer.
Judges showed signs of annoyance as the Commission repeatedly failed to explain how it decided what is important or not.
They echoed comments made by The New York Times’ lawyer, Flip Schüller, who said: “In essence, the Commission says ‘just trust us.’ How can you put forward that statement when you can’t say anything about how you searched for the documents?”
At stake is a wider question about accountability within the Commission — particularly given the size and sensitivity of the vaccine contracts.
The case also turns a spotlight on the tight grip that von der Leyen and her team held over the administration of the EU’s pandemic response and subsequent scrutiny. 
The court hearing comes just a few months after von der Leyen publicly pledged she would defend standards of transparency, efficiency and probity in her second term as Commission president.
For the first time since the controversy erupted, the Commission acknowledged the existence of the infamous texts.
The roundabout admission from Commission lawyer Paolo Stancanelli came midway through the hearing.
“We don’t deny that they [the texts] do not exist,” he eventually said, prompting laughter from the crowded courtroom.
Stancanelli challenged The New York Times’ reporting of its 2021 story, in which it revealed that von der Leyen and Bourla had texted while negotiations were ongoing.
Lawyers from the NYT cited nine sources corroborating the existence of the texts. They proceeded to read the transcription of the interview with Bourla, who was quoted as saying: “If there is an issue she (von der Leyen) wanted to know — and also I wanted to know if they have any concerns — I wanted to know. So we exchanged text messages, if there was something that we needed to discuss.”
The Commission maintains that any texts between the pair would have been purely organizational, with Stancanelli saying they were “not relevant” with no “substantive content of negotiations.”
However, this led to forensic questions from the judges about the method the Commission used to define what was substantive or not: Did they ask von der Leyen directly about the texts; check her phone or invoices; did they challenge the head of her Cabinet?
On that, the Commission lawyers said that they couldn’t say what kind of spaces were searched, as it was not documented. “This is not how procedure goes,” Stancanelli said.
After more than three hours of debate, judges quite bluntly criticized the Commission’s responses and attitude to The New York Times’ request. One judge, José Martín y Pérez de Nanclares, said the executive had not shown “adequate and diligent measures” to explain why they couldn’t share the texts. Paul Nihoul, another judge, slammed the “relatively confused dossier.”
Bondine Kloostra, another lawyer for the NYT, said it was “very disappointing how unprepared” the Commission’s agent had been in the hearing. 
“We still don’t know what happened to the phone of VDL, whether messages or Signal messages were exchanged through a laptop or any other device; we still don’t know where the Commission searched,” she said.
Savvas Papasavvas, the vice president of the court, said: “I do regret that the senior representative of the Commission comes in front of the grand chamber and he’s not in a position to tell us what actions were taken by the Cabinet of Mrs. von der Leyen.”
As the hearing ended, Stancanelli said: “I’m very sorry that I’ve generated this feeling with you, it was not my intention nor the one from the institution that I’m representing.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the name of the vice president of the court.