The EU's Supreme Court canceled the decision to reject Ursula von der Leyen's text messages during the pandemic with pharmaceutical directors, a major failure for the committee chair.

The European Court of Justice on Wednesday repealed a ruling issued by the European Commission in November 2022, demanding denial of the New York Times' freedom of information requirement.

The court said the commission did not respect EU access to document laws when it refused. It said in a wilted assessment that the committee “has not given a reasonable explanation to justify the failure of the requested documents”.

It is unclear whether the committee, which still has the right to appeal, will release the news. EU executives "study it closely" in a statement, suggesting it still intends to block access to the text and saying it will "adopt new decisions (under FOI requests) to provide a more detailed explanation".

Despite these questions, the decision was a decisive moment for von der Leyen, a few months in his second five-year term as head of the EU executive. Von der Leyen has been praised as a crisis manager, but her top-down management style also faces criticism and is accused of lack of transparency.

In January 2023, the New York Times and its then-Brussels bureau chief Matina Stevis-Gridneff began the case to challenge the committee's decision not to send text messages.

The paper reports text messages exchanged by Von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in articles that included interviews between the two.

Von der Leyen's personal diplomacy is said to have unlocked 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine, while the EU lags behind the UK and Israel in the competition to secure the number of pokes. Critics later claimed that the commission lost vaccines to €15.50 after the price of Whirrys (Pfizer) rose to €19.50.

An investigative journalist, Alexander Fanta, asked the commission to release text messages in May 2021 under the EU's Freedom of Information Rules. After the committee refused, he handed the case over to the European Ombudsman, who found the committee guilty of bad management.

Von der Leyen's text Fanta wrote The Guardian, which may "help to answer why the EU became Pfizer's single largest customer, but reportedly paid a higher price".

The New York Times applied for a May 2022 text message and challenged the committee's rejection in court. The court's negative judgment was not surprising, as the judge criticized the committee's lawyers' response at a hearing last year.

The committee claimed that the texts were sent only to coordinate meetings, but its lawyers admitted that they had not seen the news and could not say whether they still exist.

The court said Wednesday that the committee “has not adequately clarified” whether the messages have been removed, if so, whether intentionally or automatically completed, or that the president’s phone number has been replaced during that period.

The results will promote greater responsibility for EU leaders, said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at HEC Paris Business School. “This judgment provides a new reminder that the EU is governed by the rule of law and its leaders are subject to ongoing scrutiny by the free media and independent courts.”

Transparency International said it was a landmark ruling that “clearly demonstrates that the Commission’s ambivalent approach to transparency cannot stand it.”

"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," a New York Times spokesman said.