The General Court of the European Union on Wednesday annulled the European Commission’s decision to restrict access to key provisions of its COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreements. This decision followed a case brought by several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who argued that the Commission’s redactions violated principles of transparency and the public interest.

As part of the EU Strategy for vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU Commission was tasked with negotiating and concluding purchase agreements for vaccines on behalf of EU member states. These agreements, valued at €2.7 billion for approximately 1 billion vaccine doses, were intended to ensure equitable and affordable access to vaccines across the EU. In 2020 and 2021, the Commission signed contracts with major pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Sanofi-GSK, Johnson & Johnson, BioNTech-Pfizer, CureVac, Moderna, and Novavax.

Several MEPs requested access to these agreements to review their terms however the Commission only provided redacted versions. The Commission justified the redactions by citing the need to protect privacy and commercial interests, as well as its decision-making processes. Article 4 of Regulation No 1049/2001, regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, provides several exceptions to the disclosure of EU documents such as public interest, privacy, or commercial interests.

The MEPs claimed that the Commission improperly withheld information, arguing that the public interest in transparency during the pandemic outweighed the cited protections of commercial interests. They argued that increased transparency was necessary for vaccination campaigns and to encourage public trust in the vaccine strategy. The MEPs also claimed that the Commission had infringed the principle of good administration by inconsistently redacting similar information.

The General Court found that the Commission’s decision contained irregularities but only partially annulled it. The European Commission redacted the definitions of “wilful misconduct” and “best reasonable efforts” in the purchase agreements, as well as provisions related to the donations and resales of vaccine doses to third countries. The court ordered the disclosure of these clauses, ruling that the Commission had failed to demonstrate how these would concretely harm commercial interests.

On the other hand, the General Court rejected the claim that the Commission had infringed the principle of good administration, as each agreement constituted an independent document, and furthermore, that the MEPs had not demonstrated how the disclosure would have strengthened public trust in the vaccines. As such, the protection of commercial interests was upheld for the redacted clauses.