The European Commission did not allow the public enough access to information about COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreements it secured with pharmaceutical companies during the pandemic, the EU general court said Wednesday.
The decision came a day ahead of a vote at the European Parliament at which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is seeking re-election.
A group of EU lawmakers had taken legal action after the commission refused to grant them complete access to COVID-19 vaccine contracts secured between the EU’s executive arm and manufacturers.
The commission, which can appeal the ruling, said that it generally grants “the widest possible public access" to documents. But in the case of vaccines, it insisted it “needed to strike a difficult balance between the right of the public, including MEPs, to information, and the legal requirements emanating from the COVID-19 contracts themselves, which could result in claims for damages at the cost of taxpayers’ money.”
The pandemic shed light on the issue of transparency surrounding the negotiations for vaccines between the EU and big pharmaceutical groups. The commission was mandated by member countries to organize the joint procurement of vaccines and led negotiations with manufacturers.
According to the court, the procurement of vaccines on behalf of all 27 member states allowed to quickly gather 2.7 billion euros (US$2.95 billion) to place an order for more than a billion doses of vaccines.
In 2021, some members of the European Parliament asked for the full details of the agreements, but the commission only agreed to provide partial access to certain contracts and documents, which were placed online in redacted versions. It also refused to say how much it paid for the billions of doses it secured, arguing that contracts were protected for confidentiality reasons.
The court noted that the commission failed to show why divulging the agreements’ provisions on the indemnification of the pharmaceutical companies for any damages they would have to pay in the event of a defect in their vaccines would have actually harmed their commercial interests.
It also said that the commission should have provided information about the member state representatives and commission officials involved in the negotiations.
“The General Court finds that the persons who brought the action had duly demonstrated the specific purpose of the public interest in the disclosure of the personal data of the members of that team,” the court said in a statement. “It was only by having the names, surnames and details of the professional or institutional role of the members of the team in question that they could have ascertained whether or not the members of that team had a conflict of interests.”
The Greens lawmakers, who had started the case, said the ruling should lead the next commission, whose members will be appointed later this year, to be more transparent in its handling of documents' requests.
“This ruling is significant for the future, as the commission is expected to undertake more joint procurements in areas like health and defence,” said Kim van Sparrentak, one of the lawmakers who filed the lawsuit.
Amid fierce international competition for the access to vaccines, von der Leyen was praised for her leading role during the COVID-19 crisis, when the EU bought doses collectively for its citizens. But she also found herself receiving sharp criticism for the opacity of the negotiations.
Two years ago, the EU’s ombudsman said in a separate case that the commission was responsible for “maladministration” for mishandling a request for access to text messages between its president and the CEO of pharmaceutical company Pfizer regarding COVID-19 vaccine purchases.
Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly recommended that the commission “do a more extensive search for the relevant messages” relating to such purchases, after a story published by the New York Times revealed that von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had exchanged text messages and calls about vaccine procurements for EU countries.
A journalist then asked the commission for access to the text messages and other documents, but the executive branch did not provide any texts, saying no record of such messages had been kept. Commission officials had argued that text messages are ephemeral and don’t contain important information to justify their inclusion in a document management system.
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