Luxembourg, 15 October 2022 (dpa/MIA) - The European Union's multibillion dollar acquisition of coronavirus vaccines is under investigation, the EU public prosecutor announced on Friday. "This exceptional confirmation comes after the extremely high public interest," the statement from the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) said. "No further details will be made public at this stage," the EPPO added. The European Commission negotiated and concluded contracts for hundreds of millions of vaccine doses with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of EU member states. What part of this process is under the EPPO investigation was not publicized. Past criticism however focused on delivery delays and contract details made public online partially. An agreement with BioNTech/Pfizer to purchase up to 1.8 billion doses starting in the spring 2021 and estimated at the time to be worth €35 billion ($34.1 billion) in particular has been publicly scrutinized. The New York Times reported that personal contact between Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, was essential to seal the agreement. Text messages exchanged between von der Leyen and Bourla were not provided to journalists despite freedom of information requests. The European Court of Auditors (ECA), the bloc's top budget watchdog, said that it did not receive any requested information on the preliminary negotiations in a report published in September.