At the heart of the storm is one question: Should text messages count as official documents? Activists and legal watchdogs say yes—especially when billions of euros and public health are on the line. The Commission? Not so much. They’ve stonewalled since 2022, refusing to cough up the messages tied to the EU’s largest vaccine deal ever.
The case, dubbed “Pfizergate,” erupted after Bourla casually mentioned in a 2021 New York Times interview that he and von der Leyen had been personally texting while hammering out the mega-contract. That deal promised 1.8 billion Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses—900 million bought up front, with the rest on standby.
But when The Times tried to obtain those messages later that year, the Commission balked. No texts here, they claimed. That didn’t fly with the EU’s own Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, who blasted the Commission for “maladministration” and called it a “wake-up call” for EU accountability.
O’Reilly didn’t mince words about von der Leyen, either. She accused the top Brussels boss of nurturing a culture of secrecy and dodging transparency when it suits her politically. “The one person who could explain everything wasn’t even in the courtroom,” she said. Ouch.
Now, judges in Luxembourg are sharpening their pens. They’ve already scolded the Commission for redacting huge swaths of the vaccine contracts in the past, citing flimsy reasons like staff privacy and trade secrets. And at a November hearing, their patience wore thin again.
“Do these texts exist or not?” one judge demanded. The Commission finally admitted they do—after years of ambiguity—prompting laughter in court. Even more damaging? They couldn’t say if anyone had asked von der Leyen herself, checked her phone, or traced where the messages were sent.
Commission lawyers tried brushing it off, claiming the texts weren’t “important enough” to be kept. Judges weren’t buying it. “Relatively confused dossier,” one snapped. “Not adequate or diligent,” said another.
Outside the courtroom, the pressure’s mounting. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has launched its own probe into how the vaccine deals were handled—and yes, they’ve already grilled Commission officials. Though EPPO’s lips are sealed for now, the timing couldn’t be worse for von der Leyen, whose second term only just began.
She’s also been hammered for consolidating too much power and dialing back green policies to appease political winds. If this ruling goes sideways, it could gift her critics—especially Euroskeptics and nationalist parties—exactly the ammunition they’ve been waiting for.
As EU officials scramble to defend what little credibility they have left, one thing’s clear: when it comes to vaccine deals, backroom deals, and deleted texts, the public’s had enough of the smoke and mirrors.
