The case highlights questions about transparency at the commission, which insists that text messages and other “ephemeral” electronic messages do not constitute documents of interest that should be saved or made public.
“Today’s decision is a victory for transparency and accountability in the EU, and it sends a powerful message that ephemeral communications are not beyond the reach of public scrutiny,” said Nicole Taylor of The New York Times.
According to a statement from the court, the US newspaper’s lawyers “succeeded in rebutting the presumption of non-existence and of non-possession of the requested documents”.
The statement said that “the commission cannot merely state that it does not hold the requested documents but must provide credible explanations enabling the public and the court to understand why those documents cannot be found.”
It said the commission had failed to explain “in a plausible manner” why the messages did not contain important information.
The court also said that 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”.
The commission said it would study the ruling and decide on “next steps,” which could refer to an appeal to the European Court of Justice.
It is unclear if the text messages in question still exist, and if so, who has access to them. Ms Von der Leyen was responsible for deciding whether the texts constituted documents of value.
Speaking on RTÉ radio, former EU ombudsman Emily O’Reilly said the ruling was “very significant”.
She said the issue was not Ms von der Leyen trying to secure as many doses of the Pfizer vaccine as possible.
“It’s the issue of what was in the texts… and transparency, the rule of law – all those things the EU holds up to the rest of the world. Not whether she was right or wrong to try to do a deal at the time.”
“I and many people think she was absolutely right to do it, but that’s not the point of this case,” Ms O’Reilly added.
Transparency advocates argue that the EU’s increasingly powerful executive branch should maintain a paper trail of all its dealings and release documents when asked.
“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.
Païvi Leino-Sandberg, a law professor at the University of Helsinki who has a pending legal challenge before the same court about the commission’s internal documentation rules, called the news “a huge victory for transparency.”
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