Debate: Public access to documents – annual report for the years -
Date: THURSDAY, 13 JULY 2023
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

Also, in light of what you criticise that the text messages are not taken as the relevant documents to be disclosed, I think that we have to look into that and we have to set the rules which will make clear what should be disclosed and what should be recognised as a short—term, ephemeral kind of communication. So I agree. I asked several times to be allowed to withdraw these two pieces of legislation and to update that. I think I… maybe I agree with Sophie in ‘t Veld, who said that we have to… How did you say it? We need dramatic improvement. Yes, let’s do that. But we can only do it through the rules which will apply to all of us. The second thing, I was accused by Mr Zver for doing something wrong in Slovenia, so I want to make clear what happened there. I met the President of the Constitutional Court, that very court which had on the table the law on the public service television. Mr Zver, it is my professional honesty which tells me not to speak about the pending cases. I never do that. I never do it when I meet the President of the European Court of Justice. I never do it when I visit the Presidents of Constitutional Courts in the Member States. It is a holy principle that I do not interfere in the independence of the court and discuss the pending files or decisions to be taken. I made this clear immediately that very day after the hysterical accusations against me, still in Ljubljana, I made it clear, I replied very clearly there were no documents. That was just my very quick answer, so please stop this. Now, on COVID, I mentioned that indeed we need to upgrade the rules, which will also cover the electronic communications. But on COVID, I fully recognise the holy right of this House to criticise, to ask questions, request questions, and I believe that this discussion is not the last one on the topic of Ursula von der Leyen’s text messages. But I would like us also to give it a little bit of a perspective. Madame Van Brempt said that we can be proud of the EU and of our action, how we managed the COVID pandemic. It was thanks to Ursula von der Leyen’s courage because you never heard her say we don’t have any competence whatsoever for the health sector, never. She took the challenge. She came with solutions and she undertook incredible risks. Early support of research, investing in research, development and production of vaccines – it was a very risky endeavour, and she did it. Common purchase, I remember the moment of breathless expectations when AstraZeneca failed to deliver. Of course, she had to act to guarantee the delivery of the vaccines to all the Member States without seeing the queue where the small and poorer countries will be helplessly queuing behind the richer and bigger countries. Now, there was fair distribution, and it was also decisive action which was decided by Ursula von der Leyen and, of course, the College of Commissioners. So I am fully recognising your right to criticise the way of communication, but I would also like to hear from time to time some thank you to Ursula von der Leyen for the courage she had and what she did for for Europe and for the third countries, because we also distributed a lot of vaccines to the third countries. What Mr Beck said here – that a lot of vaccines had to be destroyed – well, after the battle, everybody is a general. There was no possibility to predict. As we all know, the pandemic was an unprecedented situation. Last very short comment: for very strong reasons, we discuss how to improve access to document systems, because many of you said here that is absolutely key to be transparent and to deliver the information to the outside world. But my last comment is maybe simple, maybe even banal. It is important also that the people understand the documents because we are not producing the documents to be understood by experts and lawyers only. But it is another story; it is about our communication, about the slogan ‘Europe closer to the citizens’. People should understand us, but I could not help it. I had to mention that as well.