The New York Times is suing the European Commission for not publishing text messages between the president Ursula background der layen and its managing director pfizer, Albert Burla.
The newspaper will meet with EU lawyers. to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), arguing that the Commission has a legal obligation to make public communications that may contain information about EU agreements. on the purchase of vaccines against it COVID-19 worth billions of euros.
“Messages may have been deleted”
The lawsuit was filed on January 25 and published in the European Court of Justice’s public register on Monday, but no details have yet been released. Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the details to Politico, while The New York Times declined to comment, as did the EU.
The lawsuit followed an investigation by the European Ombudsman in January 2022.Emily ‘ Rileywhich made the Commission responsible formismanagement“, since it did not provide access to messages between the president Ursula background der layen and CEO of a pharmaceutical company pfizer Albert Burla on the procurement of vaccines against corona virus.
In response, EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Evrovclaimed that the text messages may have been deleted due to their “shortness and ephemeral nature”.
Lawsuits from Bild as well
For its part, the German newspaper Build previously filed a number of lawsuits against the Commission, demanding the disclosure of documents related to negotiations for the purchase of vaccines manufactured by pfizer/BioNTek And AstraZeneca.
Recall that in April 2021, The New York Times reported that background der layen And Burla exchanged messages and calls regarding the supply of vaccine for Member States. Journalist Alexander Fanta from netzpolitik.org he subsequently asked the Commission for access to text messages and other documents, but the Commission did not release any of the messages.
According to O’ RileyThe Commission did not search for the president’s text messages, which “does not meet reasonable expectations of transparency in the Commission. When we are talking about the right of public access to EU documents, the content is important, not the device or form. If the messages concern EU policies and decisions, they should be considered as EU documents.”
The case has shed light on the debate about how EU institutions handle messages from their leaders, especially when they contain information about key political decisions.
Source: Politico
Source: Kathimerini
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