The news I would like to share with you is the “bombshell of the season”, or rather of the entire last decade, especially after the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission on 18 July 2024. Previously untouchable, with impunity and brazenly violating all norms of decency and legal principles, Ursula von der Leyen has finally come under fire from the legal authorities. This event is referred to in the German media as “Pfizergate”.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in 2014. (Source: Wikipedia)
The justification is: "the principle is that the public has the right to access documents held by an EU body" and "in order to achieve full transparency in the activities of EU bodies" — in accordance with EU regulations — "every EU citizen has the right to access documents of EU institutions". And the justification continues: "The European Union is governed by the rule of law, and its leaders are subject to constant control by the free media and an independent court."
The Court of Justice has ruled that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen must disclose her text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla because they “raise questions about transparency in the EU.” The court also ruled that the "European Commission had no right to refuse access to text messages exchanged by its President Ursula von der Leyen with the CEO of Pfizer regarding the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines.”
The justification is: "the principle is that the public has the right to access documents held by an EU body" and "in order to achieve full transparency in the activities of EU bodies" — in accordance with EU regulations — "every EU citizen has the right to access documents of EU institutions".
The above legal proceedings concerned emails from Ursula von der Leyen to Pfizer CEO in spring 2021 regarding the order of 1.8 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine from BioNTech/Pfizer. The EU was to pay around 35 billion euros for these doses.
Finally, the President of a high-ranking European Union body will pay for her non-transparent conduct and decisions contrary to the principles of EU conduct, made on behalf of the Member States behind closed doors in secret negotiations, to the exclusion of public opinion, in violation of the EU treaties and outside her mandate!
This scandalous fraud by an official holding such a high position as the President of the European Commission was carefully concealed, especially before the elections for this position, and only now has something moved.
However, before the Court of Justice issued its ruling on 14 May, the case was consistently hushed up, and the European Commission, under the supervision of Ursula, did everything to sweep this practice under the carpet.
In November 2023, there was a case that suggests that any attempts to speak out about this fraud (let’s use that word) by Ursula von der Leyen were torpedoed, even to the point of removing from public space the person who tried to publicize it.
It was the French Green MEP Michèle Rivasi. She campaigned for the publication of an exchange of text messages between the President of the Commission and the CEO of Pfizer. The day before she was scheduled to speak at the EU forum, where she was supposed to talk about it, she suddenly died of a "heart attack" at the age of 70. In response to the question: "when was Ravasi supposed to give an exposé in the European Union about the results of her research on the agreement between the EC and Pfizer", there is this comment in German Google: "Some information may have been removed due to the provisions of European data protection law." Symptomatic? Very much so — and it explains a lot.
The first leaks about the conclusion of a contract for vaccines against COVID-19 were related to the account of Heiko von der Leyen, Ursula's husband, director of the Orgenesis company (the following entry appeared in the mass media at the time: "My husband's company had the exclusive right to distribute all doses of this poison to all EU countries").
Orgenesis is owned by none other than Pfizer. These leaks – leaked not to the US, although The New York Times was already on their trail in April 2022 – but to journalists from the British Financial Times and the Reuters news agency. For years, the Commission and its head, who has always feigned a commitment to transparency with a deafeningly unsavory cascade of words, refused to publish the contracts concluded. Even Parliament and the inquiry committee saw nothing, except copies made unrecognizable by their blurring.
In response to requests from journalists and (some) MEPs, as well as the European Ombudsman and the European Court of Auditors, that the emails – and the underlying orders – be made available, Ursula has categorically refused to do so over the past few years.
The European Ombudsman (Emily O'Reilly) commented on the above: "the continuation of this institutional opacity is becoming an act of malicious political 'obstruction'", and "it is highly 'surprising' that von der Leyen continues to refuse even to respond to the countless complaints and lawsuits, including from the New York Times".
In addition to the Times, the non-governmental organization Corporate Europe Observatory had earlier, in September 2020, raised the alarm about the explosion of contacts between the pharmaceutical industry and officials of the European Commission. The medium that made this scandal public in April 2021 was of course the aforementioned The New York Times, which filed an official lawsuit against the European Commission in the European Court of Justice of the EU on January 25, 2023. It is visible in the public register only on February 13, 2023.
When journalist Alexander Fanta from the news portal netzpolitik.org asked for access to the aforementioned lawsuit, the European Commission evaded with the claim that it had not “identified” it, and that it could no longer be found, and tried to establish a kind of general exclusion of all types of SMS and instant messages from being recorded, calling them “short-term and irrelevant.”
But the years of persistence of the journalists of this American daily — won. The New York Times newspaper and its journalist Matina Stevi, who has been investigating this case since 2022, presented relevant evidence of the existence of messages between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. According to The New York Times, personal contact between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Bourla was crucial to the transaction. The New York Times journalist responsible for this, together with her newspaper, requested access to all text messages that von der Leyen and Bourla exchanged between January 1, 2021 and May 11, 2022.
The European Commission was therefore forced to make a decision on the newspaper's request, but Ursula still believes that "there is no relevant information that could be disclosed" and "is not in possession of such documents".
The Commission – of course – initially refused the newspaper’s request on the grounds that it did not have such documents. It justified its refusal by saying that the text messages “were short-lived” and in this particular case not relevant in terms of content. But the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg, at its hearing on 14 May, rejected this excuse: It demands an explanation of why the text messages are not in the possession of the President of the European Commission. If they have been deleted, that should also be explained accordingly. The EU General Court found that the newspaper and the New York Times journalist had the right to decide on the disclosure request.
“The decision is a victory for transparency and accountability in the European Union,” something that is sorely lacking there, and “sends a clear signal that ephemeral communications are not beyond public scrutiny,” a spokeswoman for the American newspaper said. In response, the European Commission — Ursula von der Leyen — announced that she would “carefully analyze the judgment and issue a new decision with a more detailed explanation.”
Currently, more and more voices are emerging demanding an explanation for this – not the only, but the dirtiest – fraud by the President of the European Commission. An investigative journalist from Austria, Alexander Fanta, would also like to know, for example, what exactly was the content of these text messages. What was communicated in them, because von der Leyen's vaccine transaction carried out in this way raises many questions, for example: "why was a much higher price paid for the new dose than for the previous purchase of vaccines?"
The non-governmental organisation Transparency International also recently commented on the Court's ruling on Ursula von der Leyen's violations of the law: "This ruling is about more than just transparency: it is about restoring the institutional accountability that the European Commission is sorely lacking."
How corrupt and depraved this EU environment is is demonstrated by a new scandal, at the center of which is once again the President of the European Commission.
Ursula von der Leyen admits she used EU funds that were supposed to be used to “fight climate change” to fund left-wing NGOs! The aim was to defend the Green Deal and silence European right-wing forces in a covert influence operation.
In conclusion, it is necessary to add that this famous scam by Mrs. Ursula "Wodęlejen" [a play on words, see explanation below - ed.] as the Polish journalist Stanisław Michalkiewicz calls her — is not the first in her official career. Namely, during the time she was the German Minister of Defense (2013-2019), the data from one of her mobile phones was also deleted. The Ministry of Defense justified their deletion in 2019 with a "security incident". Critics complained that the evidence was deleted in relation to the consulting scandal, which included allegations from improper awarding of contracts to nepotism.
One more piece of information: as reported by Euractiv — already on April 5, 2023, the Belgian lobbyist, accredited to European institutions, Frederik Baldan, decided to prosecute the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and filed a complaint against her in a Belgian court. He demanded that her immunity be lifted and that the text messages exchanged by her with the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, be investigated. He believed that her actions had violated his country's public finances and public trust, which the complaint defined as "the collective faith in the state as an institutional force acting for the common good."
Although the verdict is not yet final and the Commission may appeal it, the case has reignited the debate on the transparency and responsibility of EU institutions. We can now hope that the judgment of the Court of Justice – General Court of the European Union presented here, which – albeit being forced – showed independence and courage by going after the highest, recently re-elected corrupt official – the head of the European Commission, will result in the removal of her mandate and the imposition of an appropriately high penalty.
This is what we are waiting for!
Wodolejstwo — a tendency to speak or write at excessive length without saying much of substance. It literally comes from „woda” (water) and „lać” (to pour), suggesting the idea of "pouring water" — that is, producing a lot of verbal or written content that is mostly empty or pointless.
