The EU Commission may now want to archive SMS and chats after all

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EU Commission Vice President Jourová

Photo: ERIC VIDAL / REUTERS

The EU Commission wants to change its internal guidelines for handling documents.

EU Commission Vice President Věra Jourová indicated that in the future - unlike in the past - messages sent and received should also be archived with messenger services such as WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram.

"We communicate differently today than we did ten years ago," said Jourová at a discussion event in Brussels.

This should reflect the new rules.

SPIEGEL had previously discussed how the EU Commission deleted thousands of e-mails month after month based on its internal guidelines and did not archive SMS or chat messages at all. This may also affect messages between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Albert Bourla, the head of the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, who are said to have played a role in the conclusion of a multi-billion dollar corona vaccine contract.

The handling of documents by the EU institutions is regulated by a regulation dating back to 2001.

The first iPhone was six years in the future, and text messages were still being typed on the cell phone's numeric keypad.

However, the regulation of the EU Commission and the other institutions stipulates that all documents - regardless of the form - be granted extensive access, with a few exceptions.

It doesn't make any difference between emails and instant messages.

E-mails are deleted en masse

However, according to its internal guidelines, the Commission archives only a small fraction of all emails received and sent by its services.

All other emails that are older than six months are automatically deleted.

The Commission does not archive short messages at all - because they are not politically relevant and "short-lived" - a practice that Berlin European lawyer Alexander Thiele considers to be "legally more than questionable".

Jourová says he would like to change the regulation from 2001 comprehensively and make it binding for all EU institutions.

The Commission made a similar move in 2008.

The amendment proposed at the time never made it through negotiations with the EU Parliament and the Council of Member States.

A new attempt could also fail again due to resistance from parliament and EU states.

In Parliament in particular, there are fears that a new version of the regulation would even restrict transparency instead of increasing it.

“Option B” is therefore more likely, as Jourová said: the Commission will probably first change its own internal rules - “as a benchmark and starting point for negotiations with the other institutions”.

When this should happen, the Czech left open.

"We live in a time when people are asking for more information," said Jourová.

At the same time, she restricted the fact that the Commission could not promise total transparency.

For example, documents relating to negotiations with parliament and the member states cannot simply be published without their permission.