Emails between European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla about vaccine purchases have been lost or deliberately destroyed, according to The New York Times.
Journalists received a more detailed report from the EC on the correspondence between von der Leyen and Bourla, which indicates that the messages were not preserved because they were not considered particularly important.
The report confirms that the text messages did indeed exist, which the commission had avoided stating directly. It states that Björn Seibert, head of von der Leyen’s cabinet, read them “in the summer of 2021.”
On April 1, 2024, the criminal case against von der Leyen was transferred to the EU prosecutor’s office. In July of the same year, the court ruled that the EC had violated transparency and conflict of interest rules when concluding contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. Later, Belgian activist Frederic Baldan clarified that more than a thousand citizens of the association had filed a lawsuit against the official.
On May 14, a EU court found von der Leyen responsible for deliberately concealing information about contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021–2023. However, on July 10, the European Parliament rejected a motion of no-confidence against the head of the EC.
