New York Times sues over von der Leyen and COVID vaccines

In 2021, the NYT reported on the correspondence between Ursula von der Leyen and the HEAD of Pfizer about the conclusion of a contract to purchase 1.8 billion doses of vaccines. Journalists asked the European Commission to make these reports public,

The New York Times filed a lawsuit against the European Commission in late January because it refused to publish correspondence between the head of the EU executive body, Ursula von der Leyen, and Pfizer CEO Albert Burla, Politico reports.

The plaintiff insists that the European Commission has a legal obligation to publish messages that may contain information about the transactions of the bloc to purchase billions of euros in covid-19 vaccines, the newspaper writes.

The NYT did not comment on the details of the lawsuit, saying only that the publication "submits a lot of freedom of information requests."

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In the fall of 2021, the newspaper reported that von der Leyen and Burla corresponded for several months to conclude an agreement to purchase 1.8 billion doses of Pfizer/BioNTech CORONAVIRUS vaccines. Alexander Fanta, a journalist from netzpolitik.org, asked for access to this correspondence. In response, EC Deputy Head for Values ​​and Transparency Vera Yurova said the messages may have been removed due to their "short-lived, ephemeral nature". After that, the EU Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly criticized the actions of the European Commission.

Lawsuits against the European Commission were also filed by the German publication Bild, which also demanded to publish documents related to negotiations on the purchase of vaccines against COVID-19 from Pfizer / BioNTech and ASTRAZENECA. The newspaper managed to gain access to some of them, but the COURT rejected some of the claims.