Ursula von der Leyen was wrong to conceal vaccine deal texts, court rules

Von der Leyen has gathered more power than any other president before her, leading the Commission with a centralized and secretive approach — and this has clearly backfired,

Olivier Hoedeman of Corporate Europe Observatory, a Brussel's based watchdog, told DW

The Commission keeps repeating its commitment to transparency, but when it comes to implementing those principles, it's falling short,

Päivi Leino-Sandberg, Professor of Transnational European Law at the University of Helsinki, told DW, adding

Decisions affecting millions shouldn't be made through private texts,

Hinds said

This has damaged trust in both the Commission and the EU as a whole,

he explained

Daniel Calleja y Crespo is highly appreciated for his service in Brussels and in the Commission,

said Paula Pinho, the Commission’s top spokesperson

It looks like a reward, not a punishment,

said one, granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal decision-making

The European Commission has decided to transfer, in the interest of the service, Daniel Calleja y Crespo, to the function of Head of the European Commission Representation in Spain,

an official statement issued on Wednesday said

This ruling is about more than transparency: it is about reinstating the institutional accountability the European Commission has been sorely lacking,

said Shari Hinds, policy lead on EU political integrity for NGO Transparency International

Documents are any content, whatever its medium, concerning the policy of the European Union so from this point of view … it’s hard to argue that SMS messages are not documents,

Couronne said

Cases related to access to documents from European institutions are often highly political, because if the matter ends up before a judge, it’s usually because the Commission or another institution is stubbornly refusing to disclose information that could cause it political harm,

said Vincent Couronne, a researcher in European law at Paris-Saclay University

When questioned on that point at the hearing, the Commission stated that it assumed that its president’s mobile phone had been replaced” since the New York Times brought the case, “as it was a mandatory rule for security reasons,

the ruling said

The Commission breached the principle of good administration by confining itself … to invoking the non-existence of the requested documents without providing any explanation as to why the requested documents could not be found,

the court said

The Commission has not sufficiently clarified whether the requested text messages were deleted and, if so, whether the deletion was done deliberately or automatically or whether the president's mobile phone had been replaced in the meantime,

it said

The commission never denied the existence of text message exchanges,

an EU official said ahead of the verdict

This case presents a very important issue: whether officials may evade public transparency by communicating via text messages rather than more traditional means,

a lawyer for The New York Times, Bondine Kloostra, said in her opening arguments in November

The Commission cannot merely state that it does not hold the requested documents."

In a sharp rebuke of the EU's top leadership body, the Luxembourg based court wrote

Transparency has always been of paramount importance for the Commission and President von der Leyen,

it said in a statement

Today’s decision is a victory for transparency and accountability in the European Union, and it sends a powerful message that ephemeral communications are not beyond the reach of public scrutiny,

said Nicole Taylor, a spokesperson for the New York Times

This should serve as a catalyst for the Commission to finally change its restrictive attitude to freedom of information,

said Shari Hinds, a policy officer for Transparency International, an anti-corruption group

The commission has also failed to explain in a plausible manner why it considered that the text messages exchanged in the context of the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines did not contain important information,

they added