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In a potentially explosive development, the European Commission has admitted it did not retain text messages after a journalist requested access to them.
The European Commission has admitted it did not retain text messages between President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer after a journalist had requested access to them, The New York Times reported on Friday. 
Follow the Money journalist Alexander Fanta – then with netzpolitik.org –  first requested access to the texts in May 2021. This came after von der Leyen had told the Times that she had sealed a deal over hundreds of millions of COVID-19 doses of the Pfizer vaccine “with calls and texts” with its CEO, Albert Bourla. 
The Commission rejected Fanta’s request, arguing that the text messages were “short-lived” and did not qualify as documents under the EU’s transparency law.
The controversy surrounding the text messages and the multi-billion-euro vaccine deal kicked off a legal battle between the Commission and the Times. 
In May, the European Union’s second highest court, the General Court, ruled that the Commission had mishandled the request for access to the text messages. The landmark case was hailed as a victory for transparency by campaigners. 
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The court annulled the Commission’s decision in which it had refused access to the text messages and said that it had “failed to explain in a plausible manner” why it had not released the records. 
In response to that ruling, the Commission this week sent a document to the Times, in which it is implied that the messages were lost or destroyed after von der Leyen’s chief of staff Björn Seibert judged in the summer of 2021 that they were not important. The timing means that this decision was made after the initial request for access.
In early July, von der Leyen survived a no-confidence vote over her refusal to disclose the messages. 
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What is transpiring within the European Union? What are the goals and aspirations of the EU, and how is the budget allocated?
Covers technology and tech policy-making in the EU, and likes to uncover lobbying with Freedom of Information requests.
Deputy editor-in-chief and head of FTM's Brussels desk.
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