EU watchdog accuses Ursula von der Leyen of 'maladministration' and orders her to hand over secret texts she sent to Pfizer's CEO during efforts to buy 1.8billion Covid jabs
An official EU watchdog has slammed Ursula von der Leyen for keeping secret text messages with Pfizer's CEO about purchasing Covid vaccine doses, saying it 'constituted maladministration'.
The
EU ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, issued a formal recommendation telling
von der Leyen's office to search for and hand over the texts under a
freedom of information request lodged by a journalist.
In
April last year, the New York Times revealed that EU Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had
exchanged text messages and calls about vaccine procurements for EU
countries.
The commission rebuffed the
freedom-of-information request, refusing to say whether the texts
existed - even though von der Leyen had referred to them herself in a
media interview.
According to the ombudsman's inquiry, the Commission did not clearly ask von der Leyen's cabinet to look for the text messages.
Instead, the Commission said the only information they had was an email, a letter and a press release.
'This falls short of reasonable expectations of transparency and administrative standards in the Commission,' O'Reilly said.
When it comes to the right of public access
to EU documents, it is the content of the document that matters and not
the device or form. If text messages concern EU policies and decisions,
they should be treated as EU documents.
The
ombudsman said the commission should ask von der Leyen's office to
again look for the texts, and if it found them, 'the Commission should
assess whether public access can be granted to them' in line with EU
rules.
'The EU administration needs to update its document recording practices to reflect this reality.'
The Commission argued a 'text message or
another type of instant messaging is by its nature a short-lived
document which does not contain in principle important information
concerning matters relating to policies, activities and decisions of the
Commission' and that 'the Commission record-keeping policy would in
principle exclude instant messaging.'
They also told the ombudsman that 'to date, it has not recorded any text messages in its document management system'.
But O'Reilly rejected this argument, saying that texts fall within the Commission's definition of a document.
Von der Leyen's Commission spearheaded the pre-purchase of Covid vaccines for the 27 EU countries.
More
than half the doses the commission has bought or optioned are sourced
from BioNTech-Pfizer, making it by far the biggest supplier to the
bloc's inoculation efforts.
The commission refuses to divulge key
aspects of its contracts with Covid vaccine suppliers, notably on
pricing, citing commercial confidentiality.
Last
year, there was a mad scramble to secure vaccines, with the EU and the
UK coming to blows over contracts with the major pharmaceutical
companies.
While Britain was able to
get on top of their world-beating vaccine rollout and administer 20
million jabs within a few weeks of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines
being approved, EU leaders lagged behind in implementing a vaccine
plan.
Brussels chiefs were furious at
AstraZeneca for promising the UK first deliveries of its vaccine
supplies, claiming it has reneged on its deal with the bloc.
Countries
such as France and Germany then went back-and-forth about whether to
rollout the AstraZeneca jab, which sowed doubts among the public and led
to a low uptake of the vaccines.
Michel
Barnier, 70, later said that ideology, red tape and an aversion to
risk-taking led Europe to bungle its early vaccination drive.
