BRUSSELS: A Belgian court dismissed a lawsuit against EU chief Ursula von der Leyen centered on text messages she exchanged with the head of vaccine maker Pfizer during negotiations for Covid jabs, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
\nAnother source close to the case confirmed to AFP that the Liege appeals court \u201cdeclared inadmissible\u201d a set of complaints brought in 2023 by Belgian former lobbyist Frederic Baldan, as he could not prove suffering \u201cpersonal harm.\u201d
\nThe court \u201cfound the complainants wrong across the board,\u201d von der Leyen\u2019s lawyer Adrien Masset told AFP.
\nThe EU moved swiftly after the Covid pandemic emerged in 2020 to secure vaccines for member countries to buy for their citizens and residents, at a time of massive global demand for the shots.
\nBut many aspects of the procurement from key supplier Pfizer have been kept confidential, leading to claims of a lack of transparency \u2014 and several legal proceedings.
\nLast year Baldan, who argued that von der Leyen both overstepped her role and violated the commission\u2019s code of conduct, lost a similar lawsuit in Brussels.
\nAnother complaint filed by The New York Times against the commission for failing to release the texts despite a freedom of information request is being heard by the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union.
\nVarious anti-vaccine groups and personalities, as well as Hungary and Poland, had joined Baldan\u2019s Liege case, which contested the ability of the EU prosecutor\u2019s office (EPPO) to effectively investigate the matter.
\nThe EPPO, an independent body fighting fraud involving EU funds, opened a still-ongoing probe into vaccine purchases in 2022.
\n\u201cThe EU has now become an area of non-freedom, insecurity and injustice,\u201d Baldan said of his latest court defeat.
\nThe commission does not dispute that the text messages existed but says they did not constitute part of the vaccine negotiation \u2014 and are no longer available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS: A Belgian court dismissed a lawsuit against EU chief Ursula von der Leyen centered on text messages she exchanged with the head of vaccine maker Pfizer during negotiations for Covid jabs, her lawyer said on Tuesday. Another source close to the case confirmed to AFP that the Liege appeals court \u201cdeclared inadmissible\u201d a set …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":75932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75934,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75920\/revisions\/75934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}