European Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen has been found guilty by the EU watchdog of “maladministration”.
European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has rebuked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for failing to disclose text messages between herself and Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, in early 2020 regarding the pre-purchase of 1.8 billion COVID-19 jabs for countries in the EU.
A journalist for German outlet netzpolitik.org, Alexander Fanta, called for the texts as part of a freedom of information request, after they were reported in an interview with von der Leyen in the New York Times where she expressed that “personal diplomacy played a big part” in securing the vaccine doses.
In the New York Times article published in April 2021, von der Leyen said that securing the 1.8 billion doses were a result of “personal diplomacy”. Picture: iStock/Getty Images
An inquiry spearheaded by O’Reilly found that the European Commission did not ask von der Leyen’s personal office to disclose the text messages or identify whether any texts existed – despite them being sought in Fanta’s freedom of information request.
Instead, the Commission asked von der Leyen’s office for material that fell within the Commission’s internal guidelines for recording “documents” which did not include text messages as they were considered “short-lived“ and “informal”.
In a statement issued on Friday, O’Reilly said that the way that the Commission handled the freedom of information request was “maladministration”.
“The narrow way in which this public access request was treated meant that no attempt was made to identify if any text messages existed”, said O’Reilly.
“This falls short of reasonable expectations of transparency and administrative standards in the Commission.”
She went on to say: “Not all text messages need to be recorded, but text messages clearly do fall under the EU transparency law and so relevant text messages should be recorded. It is not credible to claim otherwise.”
As a result of the EU watchdog’s investigation, the European Commission have been instructed by O’Reilly to undertake a further comprehensive search for the text messages.
She said: “When it comes to the right of public access to EU documents, it is the content of the document that matters and not the device or form. If text messages concern EU policies and decisions, they should be treated as EU documents. The EU administration needs to update its document recording practices to reflect this reality.”
The European Commission has until April 26 to search for text messages.
Source: news.com.au
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