European Commission accused of not complying with court ruling on secret messages in Pfizer case

The decision of the General Court of the European Union in the Pfizergate case would allow the European Commission to circumvent the obligation to publish messages exchanged between Ursula von der Leyen and Albert Bourla - CEO of Pfizer during the negotiation of the agreement on the purchase of the Covid-19 vaccine, claims lawyer Arnaud Durand, according to articles taken from the Italian press by the Newsbrief.eu website. Although the court sent a strong signal to the European Commission regarding the obligation to make public the text messages exchanged between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, it could not directly order the disclosure of these messages. Lawyer Arnaud Durand, who obtained a favorable ruling in a similar case on July 17, 2024, which has not been applied to date, emphasizes this legal limitation that leaves room for interpretation.

According to Arnaud Durand, this complex legal situation can be viewed from two angles. The first interpretation, in the spirit of the decision, clearly shows that the court considers that the messages should have been made public, because the Commission's justifications were inconsistent, sometimes even misleading. The second interpretation, of a more formalistic nature, shows that the court limited itself to the letter of the law, which allows the Commission to circumvent the obligation by subsequently formulating new reasons for refusing to publish these SMS messages.

This gray area, between the meaning of the decision and its exact wording, is precisely the space that the European Commission seems to intend to exploit, says the cited source, who specifies that the recent statement of the European Commission on this case already suggests a clear direction: the European executive has chosen the second path, announcing that it will issue "a new decision with a more detailed explanation".

However, this move could encounter a major barrier. If they were now to come up with seemingly "plausible” justifications for not publishing the messages, a natural question would arise: why were these reasons not presented from the beginning? Such a delay would inevitably call into question the sincerity and authenticity of the Commission's arguments.

Moreover, if the institution continues to invoke evasive or unconvincing denials, the American daily The New York Times - which brought the action before the General Court of the European Union - could file an action seeking the enforcement of the judgment of 14 May 2025. This decision, favorable to the American publication, is particularly relevant as it touches on an essential subject: who actually negotiated the contracts for the anti-COVID vaccines?

In the proceedings against the Commission, taken by surprise, the latter hastily sent almost 800 pages of documents to the General Court of the European Union. Among them are the negotiators' statements on conflicts of interest. Although the names were anonymized, a good part of the information remained visible. Surprisingly, all the statements indicated the total absence of any conflict of interest, a statement that raises questions, given the relationship that, for example, Ursula von der Leyen's husband had with the Pfizer company.

In this context, it should be remembered that, even today, it is not clear how much the EU member states actually spent on Covid-19 vaccine contracts between August 2020 and November 2021. According to a special report by the European Court of Auditors from September 2022, the total value is estimated at 71 billion euros. A significant amount, especially if we take into account that the most important contract, worth 35 billion euros, was concluded in the spring of 2021, exactly at the time when the President of the European Commission allegedly exchanged those famous messages with the CEO of Pfizer.

This case highlights not only the urgent need for transparency in the decision-making process of the European institutions, but also the limitations of the current legal system in directly enforcing compliance with these principles.