The recommendation comes as part of a probe which originated after POLITICO reported on Jan. 30, 2024, that Macron had privately texted von der Leyen in an attempt to derail the trade deal between the EU and Mercosur, a trade bloc grouping Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The watchdog launched the probe last September after Follow the Money journalist Alexander Fanta requested access to the message. The Commission acknowledged the existence of the message but said it had been automatically deleted as the “disappearing messages” feature of the Signal app was activated.
The ombudswoman said that, in future, “the Commission should ensure that all text and instant messages relating to the Commission’s policies, activities and decisions exchanged between Heads of State or Government, or ministers, and Members of the Commission, including those subject to automatic deletion after a certain time interval, are duly preserved for a reasonable period.”
The watchdog also criticized the Commission for taking 15 months before responding to the request to access the text message and said it could not rule out that the Commission might have deleted the message after receiving the request for access.
“The way the Commission handled the complainant’s public access request constituted maladministration,” Anjinho wrote.
Regrets
In a statement to POLITICO, European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari stressed that the maladministration allegation only covered the delay in responding to request and not the fact of not keeping the message.
