E.U. Court Rebukes Bloc’s Executive Arm Over Covid Vaccine Contract Secrecy

The European Union’s second-highest court delivered an unusual reprimand to the European Commission on Wednesday, ruling that it did not give the public sufficient information about its agreements to purchase Covid-19 vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision by the General Court in Luxembourg gives new momentum to critics of Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who led the bloc’s response to the pandemic. It came just ahead of what is expected to be a tight vote on Thursday that will determine if she will serve another term as the European Union’s top official.

The European Union has refused to disclose the terms of the contracts it secured for Covid-19 vaccines, publishing redacted purchasing agreements. Green members of the European Parliament and private individuals had sued the commission, the bloc’s executive arm, seeking to gain access to the contracts and terms it negotiated with vaccine manufacturers.

On Wednesday, the court found that the European Commission was wrong to redact parts of the purchasing agreements that it published online, saying that it “did not demonstrate that wider access” to the details would undermine commercial interests. The court also said that the commission should have disclosed conflicts of interests by members of the team who negotiated the purchase of the vaccines.

The European Commission said in a statement that it would “carefully study” the court’s findings and their implications. It noted that the commission had needed to “strike a difficult balance” between giving the public and members of the European Parliament access to information, while satisfying the legal requirements of the vaccine contracts.

“In fact, in many cases in the past,” the statement said, an E.U. court has “recognized the need to protect the business interests of a contractual partner.” It added that the commission had provided the European Parliament “full information” on the vaccine contracts.