European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has just suffered her first legal setback in the ongoing “Pfizergate” scandal.

Earlier today, the European General Court — part of the EU Court of Justice, the highest court in the bloc — annulled the European Commission’s decision to deny the New York Times access to text messages between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. In these communications, the Commission President single-handedly negotiated the purchase of up to 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a mind-boggling cost of €35 billion — the largest vaccine contract ever signed by Brussels. According to one analysis, the price per dose she agreed was 15 times higher than the cost of production, meaning that the EU overpaid for the vaccines by tens of billions of euros.

When the NYT, which first broke the story in 2021, requested the messages under EU transparency rules, the Commission refused, claiming it did not keep possession of “short-lived, ephemeral” documents such as texts. The Commission also turned down similar requests by the EU Ombudsman and the European Court of Auditors. In January 2023, the American newspaper sued the Commission, arguing that the refusal violated EU law concerning public access to official documents, regardless of format.

This morning the Court of Justice ruled in favour of the NYT, and deemed that the Commission “has not given a plausible explanation to justify the non-possession of the requested documents”. It emphasised that the Commission could not simply claim it did not hold the messages without providing credible evidence to explain why they were unavailable.

It also judged that the Commission’s argument — that text messages exchanged in the context of a multibillion-euro deal were deemed to “not contain important information” — was patently absurd. The Court further noted that the New York Times had provided “relevant and consistent evidence” confirming the existence of the text messages, including Bourla’s own statements about their role in the vaccine negotiations. Indeed, the Commission’s lack of clarity on whether the messages were deleted was also criticised. Notably, after years of ambiguity even about the existence of the messages, the Commission’s lawyers only acknowledged them last November.

In a significant move, the Court ordered the Commission to pay the NYT’s legal costs, underscoring the gravity of the executive’s failure to comply with transparency obligations. The Commission now must decide whether to appeal the ruling, comply with it by providing the messages, or face further questions about their alleged “deletion”.

Whatever course of action the Commission pursues, and regardless of how the case unfolds in court, this ruling delivers an undeniable blow to von der Leyen’s standing in the court of public opinion — where “Pfizergate” has come to epitomise the EU’s glaring lack of accountability and transparency. The ruling is particularly striking, given that it comes from the European Court of Justice — an institution traditionally seen as staunchly pro-EU and typically reluctant to issue judgments which might undermine the authority of the bloc’s supranational bodies. In this case, however, the Commission’s violations appear to have been simply too blatant to overlook.

The ruling also comes amid growing criticism, even from EU leaders and officials, of von der Leyen’s centralising and authoritarian behaviour. In recent years, the Commission has expanded the scope of its executive action in virtually every field, including many that were previously the exclusive preserve of EU member states and over which the Commission has no formal competence — from fiscal policy to public health to security matters. Under von der Leyen, these powers have expanded to an unprecedented degree, leading to an almost “US-presidential style understanding of executive power”, as Politico wrote in 2022. As a result she has earned the nickname “Queen Ursula” in Brussels.

The pressure on von der Leyen is mounting beyond this ruling. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, tasked with investigating serious financial crimes against the EU’s financial interests, has confirmed that it has been investigating the Commission over its handling of Covid vaccine procurements. The Queen’s reign might face no immediate threat, but armies are mustering on the horizon.

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Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Toby Green.

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