On Tuesday 21 June, MEPs on the European Parliament’s new Special Committee on the Covid-19 received the Commissioner for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová.
Rule of law. The Commissioner told MEPs that the pandemic had been a test of the control and respect of the rule of law by Member States and the European institutions. The Commission carried out a check to ensure that the restrictive measures taken in the context of the pandemic were necessary, proportionate and subject to public, media and parliamentary scrutiny at national and European level.
For Věra Jourová, overall, democratic control in Europe has worked well. She added that it was up to the citizens to judge whether they felt their government had gone too far. The Commissioner indicated that the Commission had been asked to engage further with Member States on this issue, but she herself had objected, believing that the Constitutional Courts were the most appropriate bodies to assess whether fundamental rights had been limited in a proportionate manner. For the Commissioner, it is important that the institutions function in accordance with national constitutions. She added that the Commission was not and is not equipped to take concrete action in such situations.
Fighting disinformation. Responding to Deirdre Clune (EPP, Ireland) and Romana Jerković (S&D, Croatia), among others, the Commissioner confirmed that disinformation was indeed one of her priorities. She listed the tools that the EU has in place to respond to disinformation. She focused on the working group, on a joint communication on disinformation published with the European External Action Service (EEAS) in 2020 (JOIN(2020) 8 final) dealing with the sources, vectors and targets of disinformation. The new strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation will develop tools to put pressure on internet platforms. She felt that platforms were not doing enough to combat disinformation and wanted them to invest more in checking the content they disseminate and to avoid capitalising on disinformation. The Commissioner also stressed the need to support media freedom and diversity.
Transparency. Transparency was one of the concerns of the members of the Special Committee. Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (Renew Europe, France) said that transparency and disinformation are linked and that transparency had been one of the weak points in the management of the pandemic: “European citizens remain ill-informed about the content of the different contracts [for vaccine purchases], the different agreements”, she explained. Ms Trillet-Lenoir also regretted that untruths about the pandemic had been told during this parliamentary session.
Věra Jourová replied to MEPs that the Commission had published versions of the contracts from which certain information had been removed to protect the legitimate interests of third parties, as this information was protected for the purpose of protecting the commercial interests of the contracting parties, including from the point of view of intellectual property rights. The Commission, she said, had published the documents in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 and complied with the obligations of professional secrecy under Article 339 TFEU. She pointed out that an EU Court of Justice ruling in September 2020 makes it possible to disclose information covered by commercial secrecy after 5 years, unless it is shown that the information constitutes an aspect of the commercial position of the company to which it refers.
Committee chair Kathleen Van Brempt (S&D, Belgium) announced a hearing after the summer with the heads of companies that have marketed vaccines as well as experts. This announcement was welcomed by Věra Jourová. (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)