The European Ombudsman has opened an investigation into European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over a secret group chat in which she and several European leaders coordinated their response to U.S. President Donald Trump, escalating long-running concerns about transparency at the top of the European Union. Ombudsman Teresa Anjinho said the inquiry would examine whether the Commission complied with EU transparency rules when it refused to release messages from the chat.
The investigation does not concern the substance of the leaders' exchanges but rather a procedural question: whether the Commission was entitled to withhold the correspondence. The Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money had requested access to the messages, and the Commission rejected the request, arguing that disclosure could damage the EU's relations with countries outside the bloc. Anjinho's office is now scrutinizing that refusal.
The chat, reportedly dubbed the "Washington Group," was first reported by Politico in January. According to that reporting, the group functioned as a private channel for European leaders to discuss how to contain or respond to Trump whenever the U.S. president did something they viewed as potentially damaging to European interests. Participants were said to include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The probe lands on familiar terrain for von der Leyen. The Commission president has faced sustained criticism over her reliance on informal communications for high-stakes decisions, most prominently in the long-running controversy over text messages she exchanged with the chief executive of Pfizer during negotiations for COVID-19 vaccines. An EU court previously faulted the Commission's handling of access requests for those messages, a precedent that hangs over the latest case.
At the heart of both episodes is a tension over how the EU's executive documents and discloses its decision-making. Transparency advocates argue that messages and chats used to coordinate policy are official records subject to public-access law, and that allowing them to vanish into private channels erodes democratic accountability. The Commission has tended to treat such ephemeral communications as outside the scope of disclosure obligations.
Anjinho has asked to meet with Commission representatives by the middle of July, and the investigation is expected to run for several months. The Ombudsman cannot impose binding penalties, but its findings carry political weight and can pressure EU institutions to change their practices or release withheld documents.
For von der Leyen, who has steered the bloc through war on its borders, an energy crisis and a fraught relationship with Washington, the inquiry is an unwelcome reminder that questions about openness continue to shadow her tenure. How the Commission responds — whether it releases the messages or defends its refusal — will test its commitment to the transparency standards it says it upholds.