Wednesday, the Court of Justice of the European Union (TJUE) Established that the Commission had acted illegally in the matter raised by the “New York Times‘, who asked to have access to the text messages exchanged Among the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and the director of Pfizer, Albert BourlaIn relation to vaccine contracts in the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Court, the Commission should not be limited to arguing that it does not have the requested documents, as he did, but to give credible explanations that allow both the public and the understanding of the court So that these tests could not be identified.
The European Commission is not the first institution that says it It cannot facilitate text messages When journalists or legislators are asked. Here are other cases where the tests have simply disappeared:
1. The Nokia-Gate de Rutte
The former Dutch prime minister (and current Secretary General of NATO) Mark Rutte He was responsible for the Dutch government in the period between 2010 and 2024. It was shown that during that period he eliminated several text messages from his phone, An old nokia 301.
Route renowned for officials those messages that he considered relevant for the archive, but the rest canceled them in the “small storage space” on their phone, defended The former Prime Minister And they published the Dutch media in 2022
In 2019, the Dutch Council of State decided that WhatsApp and text messages both in the professional and private phones of officials, if they are sent in the context of work – Enter the government’s information lawWhich means that they can be part of the requests required by the laws of freedom of information.
2. Eliminated in various companies during government inspections
Do not keep the registers updated can leave expensive: in 2024, the Commission fined the company International flavors and fragrances Already its French division with around 15.9 million euros to hinder an inspection in 2023.
The Commission discoveredThis, during this inspection, a manager of the Senior Iff intentionally canceled WhatsApp messagesexchanged with a competitor. This happened after the employee had been informed of the investigation. The community manager said he considered the accident of “very serious nature”.
Likewise, the Dutch Dutch regulator Acm has imposed a fine of 1.84 million euros to an unidentified company in 2019 To hinder their investigations. “The employees of the company who are investigated for having made anti -concurrence agreements abandoned WhatsApp groups and chats eliminated during an ACM raid. This is prohibited,” said the control agency.
3. Search on the Scottish SN that acts during the Coronavirus
The former Scottish Prime Minister Nicola SturgeonTogether with other ministers and health officials, he canceled all their WhatsApp messages relating to pandemic. It is a fact that came to light last year during a national investigation.
Sturgeon had previously declared that he was committed to “total transparency” on his behavior during the pandemic. The investigation had had difficulty understanding What were always the concrete actions of the governmentBecause their responses to research requests were incomplete or vague.
John Swinney, former deputy prime minister in the country, declared him He had manually canceled his messages sent to Sturgeonwho, according to him, has been adapted to his interpretation of the Scottish government policy on transparency. A “that has never been questioned in previous years,” he said.
4. The undercover negotiations on German tolls
In 2020, the German media showed that the then Minister of Transport, Andreas Scheuer, He used e -mail addresses and private telephone numbers in the negotiations on controversial toll standards cars in the country, which meant that the content was not preserved in the official archives of the Ministry of Transport.
Applications for Freedom of information They did not offer access to data, because what is not filed in the official archives must not be made public according to German legislation.
The Scheuer project Was considered illegal by the Tjue in 2019But not before the multimillion contracts were signed in this regard. The operators asked the Federal Government for compensation of 560 million euros.
