“The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of “short-lived and ephemeral” communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents.”
Von der Leyen texted Pfizer’s CEO for months while closing a deal for 1.8 billion vaccine doses. A journalist asked for the messages. First the Commission said texts don’t count as documents. The ombudsman found staff never even asked her office to look. Now the texts can’t be found, and nobody is in trouble for losing them.