More than two years after the New York Times first broke the scandal, the ‘Pfizergate’ case has reached an explosive climax.
On 14 May, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled against the European Commission on all counts. Annulling the latter’s refusal to release text messages between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during Covid-19 vaccine negotiations, the court’s decision concludes that the Commission failed to provide “a plausible explanation” for its actions that “breached the principle of good administration.”
Observers consider the ruling both a legal milestone and political bombshell for von der Leyen, whose reputation and authority has been directly challenged just six months into her new mandate. Meanwhile, transparency advocates have framed the verdict as a major victory and stark reminder of the EU executive’s selective observance of governance laws.
As Transparency International’s Shari Hinds has rightly asserted, “this ruling is…about reinstating the institutional accountability the European Commission has been sorely lacking” – a transparency gap the tobacco industry has particularly consistently exploited under von der Leyen’s watch to weaken public health policies. With EU tobacco control reform on the horizon, this major vulnerability must no longer go unchallenged.
Deeper dive into Pfizergate
Already under fire for its increasing centralisation of power and green policy backtracking, the ‘Pfizergate’ decision darkens the cloud hanging over von der Leyen’s second term. The ECJ ruling is particularly damaging as the EU chief not only personally approved the multi-billion vaccine deal – the EU’s largest-ever contract – but leads the very institution tasked with upholding the bloc’s transparency laws.
At the heart of the Pfizergate case is the question of whether text messages should be considered official documents subject to EU governance rules. While transparency advocates and legal experts insist they should be treated no differently from emails or other formal communications, the Commission has maintained the opposite view. After months of Commission stonewalling, The New York Times and its former Brussels bureau chief escalated the matter to the ECJ in early 2023, demanding access to the von der Leyen-Bourla messages.
In parallel, then-European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly ruled in 2022 that the EU executive’s failure to retrieve the Pfizergate messages amounted to maladministration, adding that transparency had deteriorated under von der Leyen. Indeed, the Commission avoided even acknowledging the messages’ existence for years, only doing so at a court hearing last November. Moreover, ECJ judges repeatedly pressed the Commission on its method for determining whether the texts warranted qualification as official documents – questions the EU executive was unable, or unwilling, to answer convincingly.
Following the court’s ruling, the Commission issued a brief statement saying it would review the decision and issue a new explanation addressing The New York Times’s original request – yet the saga is far from over. In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed that it is investigating the Commission’s handling of vaccine procurement, raising the stakes further in a case undermining the EU executive’s legitimacy.
Big Tobacco exploiting Commission’s culture of secrecy
Among the Green MEPs who brought a separate case to the EU’s General Court over the Commission’s redaction of vaccine contracts, Tilly Metz offered a pointed reminder after the Pfizergate ruling. “If you want the public to…trust the politicians,” as well as their contacts with industry, “you have to put the focus on transparency,” Metz affirms. As the Vice President of the SANT Committee, Metz recently emphasised the need for bolder action on another critical health policy issue long compromised by the Commission’s transparency lapses: tobacco.
Given tobacco’s place among the leading causes of death in Europe, Metz’s contribution to the 9 May EP plenary debate urged Brussels to “stop beating around the bush,” with the recent years of inaction stemming from the Commission’s weakness in the face of aggressive Big Tobacco lobbying. Exemplifying this dynamic, the Commission’s unexplained decision to block the Tobacco Taxation Directive revision in December 2022 – prominently spotlighted by the Smoke-Free Partnership’s Lilia Olefir – raises a pressing question. As with Pfizergate, are there undisclosed text messages with tobacco companies behind this and other industry wins in recent years?
Following the 2014 Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) review – during which tobacco lobbyists successfully stripped out provisions for an independent, WHO FCTC-compliant tobacco traceability system – the Commission allowed the tobacco industry and its partners’ influence to seep into the EU’s policy framework with little resistance or oversight. Since 2019, tobacco industry allies Dentsu Tracking, Inexto and Atos have operated the EU’s tobacco traceability system, with their close links to the Philip Morris International-developed Codentify system directly violating WHO rules.
In countries such as Lithuania, Inexto and Atos have falsely promoted Codentify as a WHO-compliant traceability technology. What’s more, Dentsu Tracking, owner of Codentify co-developer Blue Infinity, has sparked significant controversy for winning its Commission contract without an open public tender and neglecting to register in the EU Transparency Register during its years-long, Big Tobacco-backed lobbying of the EU executive. Given the EU’s direct funding of Dentsu – contrary to then-EU Health Commissioner Kyriakides’s written claim that its Japanese parent company had not received EU money – this transgression raises serious maladministration concerns which warrant the EPPO’s attention.
In 2023, Former Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly notably issued a maladministration ruling on the Commission’s dealings with tobacco lobbyists, while an EP group led by former MEP Anne-Sophie Pelletier and supported by civil society experts produced a White Paper early last year exposing the costs of this revolving-door relationship. With illicit trade rising and billions in tax revenue lost annually across the EU, Pelletier’s recently-launched SANITAS initiative aims to secure real safeguards in the upcoming TPD review and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Building back up from the ruins
In the current European Parliament, Pelletier and her civil society allies will find committed partners – especially within the ranks of the SANT Committee. For example, Lithuanian MEPs Aurelijus Veryga and Vytenis Andriukaitis bring deep expertise and longstanding dedication to tobacco control, with Veryga having founded Lithuania’s National Tobacco Control Coalition and Andriukaitis having warned as early as 2016 against the tobacco industry’s role in tackling the EU’s illicit tobacco trade.
A continuation of her ambitious work on tobacco while serving as an MEP, Pelletier’s SANITAS paves the way for meaningful tobacco control regulation driven primarily by the public’s interest. Moving forward, the SANT Committee has an opportunity to correct the course of EU tobacco policy and leave a legacy of transparency action, building on the momentum of ECJ’s landmark stand against the Commission’s culture of secrecy and opaque dealings with noxious industries.
The Pfizergate ruling has laid bare a deeper crisis at the EU’s core: a failure of accountability that erodes trust and opens the door to powerful lobbies that undermine public health. As the EU prepares to reform its tobacco control framework and advance other vital health files, it must treat this judgment as a turning point. Transparency must no longer be viewed in Brussels as an optional, selectively-applied exercise, but rather as the first line of defence against corporate capture and the only way to rebuild credibility where it’s been lost.