Pfizergate: the EU court's advocate general piles pressure on von der Leyen over the texts exchanged with Pfizer

A European affair of state can fit into a few text messages — especially when you claim they don't exist. On 11 June 2026, the advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a scathing opinion in the case nicknamed “Pfizergate”: he recommends the Court dismiss the European Commission's appeal and uphold the ruling that had condemned it for refusing to disclose the messages exchanged between its president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the head of Pfizer.

The affair has run for five years and encapsulates, on its own, a question that plagues Brussels: are a leader's texts public documents? For the advocate general, as for the EU General Court before him, the Commission's answer — “we don't have them” — does not hold.

It began with a mega-contract negotiated by text

It all starts with an interview. In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Ursula von der Leyen told the New York Times she had exchanged texts and calls with Albert Bourla, Pfizer's CEO, to negotiate a colossal Covid vaccine contract — one of the largest ever signed by the Union, covering hundreds of millions of doses and several tens of billions of euros. The admission, presented at the time as proof of political drive, would turn into a time bomb.

For if the Commission president negotiates a contract of that scale by text, then those texts are, logically, documents linked to the exercise of her office. The New York Times therefore requested access to them, under the EU regulation on transparency of documents (regulation 1049/2001). The Commission refused, essentially explaining that it did not hold these messages — texts, it argued, being ephemeral by nature and not registered as official documents.

The EU General Court had already ruled against the Commission

In May 2025, the General Court of the European Union (the CJEU's first-instance court) sided with the newspaper and annulled the refusal decision. According to the ruling, the Commission had not carried out a credible search to find the messages and had given no convincing explanation for their supposed disappearance. The judges held that one cannot simply assert that a document does not exist: one must also seriously demonstrate that one looked for it.

It was a resounding institutional defeat for Brussels, and a personal rebuff for Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission nonetheless chose not to bow: it lodged an appeal before the Court of Justice — the tier above — to try to have that ruling overturned.

What the 11 June 2026 opinion says

This is where the advocate general comes in. His role, at the CJEU, is to propose independently a legal solution to the Court, in the form of an “opinion”. In his 11 June 2026 opinion, he recommends dismissing the Commission's appeal and therefore upholding the condemnation handed down by the General Court. In plain terms: for him, the Commission did indeed fail in its transparency obligations, and its argument about the “untraceable” texts lacks credibility.

A crucial point for grasping the significance of the event: this opinion is not binding. The Court remains free to depart from it. But, in practice, the judges follow the advocate general's opinion in the vast majority of cases. The 11 June opinion is therefore a very strong signal: the Commission risks, at the final ruling expected later in 2026, seeing its condemnation upheld at the highest level.

Why this affair goes far beyond a few texts

Pfizergate is not just an archivists' quarrel. It raises two fundamental questions. The first is transparency: if a leader can shield decisive exchanges from public scrutiny by routing them through a private messaging app, then the EU regulation on access to documents becomes an empty shell. The second is conflicts of interest: without access to the messages, it is impossible to verify what was promised, negotiated or conceded in signing a contract worth tens of billions of euros of public money.

The affair has an obvious political dimension. Ursula von der Leyen's opponents, notably in certain governments and in the European Parliament, have made it a symbol of Brussels opacity and a recurring argument in debates on her governance. The president, for her part, has always defended the legality of the joint vaccine purchase, presented as one of the Union's great successes during the pandemic.

It must therefore be stated plainly: this file falls under the administrative law of transparency, not criminal law. No one is, at this stage, accused of corruption in these proceedings: what is at stake is the refusal to disclose documents, ruled unlawful at first instance. The debate on any conflicts of interest hangs on a simple question: do these texts still exist, and what do they say?