The General Court of the European Union found that the European Commission was wrong to restrict access to COVID-19 vaccine purchase contracts to citizens, in a decision handed down on Wednesday (July 17).
Between 2020 between 2021, and 2023, the Ursula von der Leyen Commission signed contracts with several pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, and Astra Zeneca, to purchase COVID-19 vaccine doses.
In January 2021, five Green MEPs – Margrete Auken, Tilly Metz, Jutta Paulus, Kim van Sparrentak and the late Michèle Rivasi – asked the Commission for access to these contracts, in the name of the public interest.
However, the Commission published the contracts in a redacted version. As a response, the MEPs decided to take their case to the Luxembourg-based court.
On Wednesday, the court announced its findings, “The Commission did not give the public wide enough access to the contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines.”
The court criticised the “partial” refusal by the Commission to disclose the details of members of the negotiating team on grounds of privacy.
“It was only by having the names, surnames and details of the professional or institutional role of the members of the team in question that they could have ascertained whether or not the members of that team had a conflict of interests” the press release reads.
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