For weeks during the height of the Covid pandemic in early 2021, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, personally exchanged calls and texts with Albert Bourla, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Von der Leyen was seeking to secure billions of doses of vaccine.

At the time, the virus was rampant, people were dying and the EU was desperate to catch up with the UK and Israel,which had moved more quickly to procure vaccines. Supplies from Pfizer and AstraZeneca were running low as a result of production issues.

In a frenzied effort to get more Europeans vaccinated, the EU spent an estimated €21.5bn (£17.9bn) on an exclusive deal with Pfizer for up to 1.8bn doses. The deal was secured by Von der Leyen after her text offensive, as she later told the New York Times in a flattering interview. It was a much-needed win for the commission president, who had faced accusations of mishandling the vaccine rollout earlier in the pandemic.

As an investigative reporter, I filed an access request under the EU’s freedom of information law to the messages shared between von der Leyen and Bourla. These messages, if we had them, might provide important insights into how the controversial life-saving vaccines deal came together. They might also help to answer questions such as why the EU became Pfizer’s single biggest customer but reportedly paid a much steeper price for this batch of vaccines compared with the first........

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