Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
A primary European court ruled Wednesday that the European Commission is wrong to refuse to access the New York Times sent to the text message and a pharmaceutical bossen during the covid-19 pandemic.
The case promotes ongoing questions about the commission transparency, which insists that text messages and other “ephemeral” electronic communications should not be saved or publicly informed.
“The decision today is a victory for the European Union’s transparency and accountability, and it sends a strong message that is not public,” Nicole Taylor, a spokesman for New York Timlo.
The US newspaper lawyers “succeeded in changing the expectation of no existence and no possession of the requested documents,” according to a statement of the European Union in Luxembourg.
The statement says “The Commission is not only able to say that it does not hold the requested documents but must be given reliable public explanations and court to find out why documents cannot be found.”
It is said that the Commission has failed to explain “in a useful manner” why the messages do not contain important information.
It is also said that the Commission “has not been clearly explained when the requested text messages have been deleted and, if so, if the deletion of the phone is replaced at the moment.”
The Commission told to study it with the rule and judgment “in the next steps,” which can refer to an appeal before the European Court of Justice, the primary EU court. It is unclear if the question text messages still have, and who has access to them. Von Der Leyen himself is responsible for deciding whether texts contain documented amounts.
“Transparency is always important for Commission and President von der Leyen,” the Commission said in a statement.
Transparency advocates argue that the most powerful EU executives have to continue with a passageway to all its dealings and releasing documents if requested.
“It should serve as a commission factor that will eventually change the strict nature of information on information,” Shari hinds, a polish anti-corruption.
The New York Times said text messages are changed between Von Der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla as Covid-19 communities from Portland and EU Scramble to buy billions of vaccines.
Von Der Leyen is under extreme examination, especially after Astrazeneca failed to deliver vaccine doses to 27-country bloc.
Among the fierce international competition for access to vaccinesVon Der Leyen was praised for his main role during the pandemic. But he also faced sharp criticism for the opacity of negotiations that can easily gather 2.7 billion euros ($ 2.95 billion) to put an order in excess of a billion vaccines.
At the same time as he was reported to transfer messages directly to Pfizer Boss, von der LeyenPublic praisethe company as “A reliable partner. “
Von der Leyen was appointed to lead the Commission for a second five-year term in July. The critics say that the 66-year-old German Defense minister who does not want his decisions to ask, and he or she is in charge of the Commissions Commission Commission.
In his first term, Von Der Leyen led the EU’s pandemic response but also helped with Russian energy arrest, after a lever used European support for Ukraine.
“This is not correct that the commission president does not use text messages to conduct political business,” said Daniel Freund, a lead leavered anti-corruption and a Green Green Party member of the European Parliament. “This rule is a clear defeat for Ursula von der Leyen and a clearly rejecting his habit of hiding or hiding his text messages.”
Païvi Leino-Sandberg, a law Professor at the University of Helsinki who has a pending legal challenge before the same court about the Commission’s internal documentation rules, called the news “a huge victory for transparency.”
“The Commission lost completely (in this judgment) and every possible standard that returns it to the ECJ as it is never avoided,” he said.
This story originally shown Fortune.com
