[ad_1]
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Commission did not provide the public with enough information about the COVID-19 vaccine procurement deals it struck with pharmaceutical companies during the height of the pandemic, the General Court of the European Union concluded Wednesday.
The decision comes a day before a vote in the European Parliament in which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seeks re-election.
A group of MEPs has taken legal action after the European Commission refused to give them full access to COVID-19 vaccine contracts agreed between the EU executive and manufacturers.
The commission, which can appeal the ruling, said it usually makes the documents “as widely available to the public as possible.” But in the case of the vaccines, he insisted “a difficult balance needs to be struck between the information rights of the public, including European parliamentarians, and the legal requirements arising from the COVID-19 contracts themselves, which could lead to litigation” for compensation at taxpayers’ expense.
The pandemic has put the issue of transparency in vaccine negotiations between the European Union and big pharmaceutical companies on the table. The European Commission, which is tasked by member states to jointly organize vaccine procurement during the pandemic and lead negotiations with manufacturers, has been tasked with the EU to jointly organize vaccine procurement during the pandemic and lead negotiations with manufacturers.
The court said procuring vaccines on behalf of the 27 member states enabled the organization to quickly raise 2.7 billion euros ($2.95 billion) to order more than 1 billion doses.
Some members of the European Parliament have called for a full breakdown of the deal in 2021, but the European Commission has agreed to grant access only to some contracts and documents, which have been posted on the internet with fragments blacked out. The company has also declined to say how much it paid to secure the billions of doses it has secured, saying the contracts are protected by confidentiality issues.
The court noted that the Commission had not shown why the disclosure of the clause in the agreement to indemnify the pharmaceutical companies for any losses they had to pay as a result of a defective vaccine would harm their commercial interests.
He also said the Commission should provide information on member state representatives and Commission officials involved in the negotiations.
“The General Court concludes that the persons bringing the action have sufficiently demonstrated a specific public interest purpose for the publication of the personal data of the team member in question,” the court said in a statement. “Only by knowing the first and last name of the team member in question and details of his professional or institutional role could they determine whether the team member had a conflict of interest.”
The Green Party MP who brought the case said the ruling should make the next commission, to be appointed this year, more transparent in how it handles document requests.
Kim van Sparrentak, one of the MEPs who brought the case, said: “This ruling is important for the future, as the Commission is expected to conduct more joint procurement in areas such as health and defence.”
Amid fierce international competition for vaccine access, von der Leyen has been praised for her leadership during the COVID-19 crisis, when the EU collectively purchased vaccines for its citizens. However, he has also been heavily criticized for the opacity of the negotiations.
Two years ago, the EU ombudsman said in a separate case that the European Commission was responsible for “mismanagement” for mishandling text message requests between its president and the chief executive of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals to buy coronavirus vaccines.
Advocate Emily O’Leary suggested the commission “search more extensively for relevant information related to these purchases” after the New York Times published an article about an exchange between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla regarding text messages and phone calls regarding the procurement of vaccines for EU countries.
A reporter later asked the committee to see the text messages and other documents, but the administration provided no information and said it kept no records. Committee officials argued that the text messages were ephemeral and did not contain important information to justify their inclusion in a document management system.
[ad_2]
Source link
