EU Commission Hid Vaccine Contract Details From Public, Court Rules

The EU’s top court today ruled that the European Commission’s decision to heavily redact key…

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The European Union‘s (EU) top court today ruled that the European Commission’s decision to heavily redact key portions of COVID-19 vaccine contracts with pharmaceutical companies during the pandemic violated the commission’s transparency obligations.

The European Court of Justice found that the commission failed to provide sufficient public access to COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreements, in a ruling that could deal a blow to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the eve of her re-election bid, according to The Associated Press (AP).

The ruling came in response to legal challenges brought by EU lawmakers and private citizens seeking fuller disclosure of the multibillion-euro vaccine deals.

It highlights ongoing concerns about the secrecy surrounding the EU’s vaccine procurement process, a contentious issue since the early days of the pandemic.

“The Commission did not give the public wide enough access to the contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines,” the court said in its judgment, pointing to several areas where the executive body fell short in being sufficiently transparent.

In response to the ruling, the commission wrote, “The Commission needed to strike a difficult balance between the right of the public, including MEPs [Members of the European Parliament], 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.”

Green MEP Tilly Metz, one of the deputies who submitted the original request, said, “This ruling is significant for the future, as the EU Commission is expected to undertake more joint procurements in areas like health and potentially defence,” Euractiv reported.

“The new European Commission will have to adapt their handling of access to documents requests to be in line with today’s ruling,” Metz said.

However, Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst told The Defender that the court ruling is not the victory it seems. She argued that the EU court has given the commission a “giant loophole” to keep parts of the contracts secret “to protect ‘business interests.’”

“It is not possible to both protect public health and full transparency and at the same time protect the business interests of the supplier,” Terhorst said. “We, the public, will not get the access to the information we need. The cat and mouse play continues.”

The commission, which has two months to appeal the decision, said it would “carefully study the Court’s judgments and their implications” and that it “reserves its legal options.” …