Brussels - The top European court ruled on Wednesday that the European Commission rejected access to the New York Times' visit to text messages sent by President Ursula von Leyen and a drug boss during the Covid-19-19 pandemic, which inspired further calls for reforms from transparency advocates.

According to a statement from the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg, lawyers in the U.S. newspapers “successfully refuted the presumption of non-existence and non-existence of documents that require non-existence.”

The case highlights ongoing issues concerning the oversight of the Commission, which insists that text messages and other “ephemeral” electronic communications do not necessarily constitute documents of interest that should be kept or published.

"The committee cannot simply state that it does not hold the requested documents, but must provide a reliable explanation to allow the public and the court to understand why the documents are not found," a statement from the court said.

It said the committee failed to explain in a "reasonable way" why the messages did not contain important information.

It also said that the committee “has not fully stated whether the requested text messages have been deleted, if so, whether the removal is intentional or automatic, or whether the president’s cell phone has been replaced during this period.”

"Today's decision is a victory for EU transparency and accountability, which conveys a strong message that short communications are not beyond the scope of public scrutiny," said New York Times spokesman Nicole Taylor.

The commission said it would study the ruling and make a "next step" decision, which could refer to the appeal of the European Court of Justice of the Supreme Court of the European Court.

"Transparency has always been crucial to the Commission and President von der Leyen," it said in a statement.

Advocates of transparency believe that the EU's increasingly powerful executive should keep paper traces of all its transactions and release documents when inquiry.

"This should be the catalyst for the commission to eventually change its restrictive attitude," said Shari Hinds, policy officer for Transparency International, an anti-corruption group.

The New York Times said the text between Von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is a community raging to Finland, where the EU scrambles to buy billions of vaccines.

Von der Leyen has come under scrutiny, especially after Astrazeneca stumbled upon the dose of the vaccine to the 27-country group.

Von der Leyen has been praised for her leadership during the pandemic in a fierce international vaccination race, but she has also found herself being sharply criticized for the opacity of negotiations to quickly collect 2.7 billion euros ($2.95 billion) to order more than 100 million doses of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, Von der Leyen publicly praised the company as a "reliable partner" when she reportedly exchanged news directly with her boss.

The committee has only more than two months to appeal the European Court of Justice if it decides to file a lawsuit against Wednesday's ruling.

"The committee lost so completely in this ruling (in this ruling) that it seemed extremely impossible to overturn this in the ECJ," said Païvi Leino-Sandberg, a law professor at the University of Helsinki. "This is a huge victory for transparency."

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Lorne Cook of Brussels contributed to the report.