Ahead of a vote at the European Parliament for the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission President, the EU General Court stated that the European Commission did not provide the public with sufficient access to the purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. The Commission signed numerous major contracts to secure vaccines from pharmaceutical companies during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
A group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) wanted to review the contracts to understand the terms and conditions. Still, they were only given partial access instead of the requested access. Subsequently, the lawmakers took legal action and brought the case to the General Court based in Luxembourg. The Court ruled that the Commission had not shown that providing access to specific clauses would have undermined the commercial interests of the companies involved. Additionally, it stated that the Commission could have provided more information about declarations made by the team members who negotiated the contracts.
“The commission did not take sufficient account of all the relevant circumstances to weigh up correctly the interests at issue,” the Court said.
The Commission, which has the option to appeal the ruling, stated that it generally allows “the widest possible public access” to documents. However, in the case of vaccines, it emphasised that it “needed to find a difficult balance between the public’s right to information, including members of the European Parliament, and the legal requirements from the COVID-19 contracts, which could lead to claims for damages at the expense of taxpayers’ money.”
The pandemic highlighted the lack of transparency surrounding the vaccine negotiations between the EU and major pharmaceutical companies. EU members tasked the Commission with coordinating the joint vaccine procurement and conducting talks with manufacturers.
