Judgment Day: Ursula von der Leyen found responsible for hiding information about vaccination

Pfizergate, a scandal related to her secret correspondence with the CEO of Pfizer about COVID-19 vaccines, broke out around the head of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen. The Court of Justice of the European Union found von der Leyen responsible for concealing information about drug procurement contracts in 2021-2023. Although entering her second term in office, the head of the EC promised to adhere to the principle of transparency, work efficiently and honestly. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

On the plaintiff's side

"The court found the plaintiff's arguments well-founded. The European Commission cannot simply declare that it does not have the requested documents, but must provide reliable explanations allowing the public and the court to understand why these documents cannot be found," the Court of Justice of the European Union said in a ruling.

The decision also notes that the European Commission "did not provide a plausible explanation justifying the lack of documents," and also did not specify whether the requested text messages were deleted, and if so, intentionally or automatically.

In addition, the EU Court of Justice recalled that, by law, the European Union is obliged to grant the right to public access to documents stored in its institutions.

In 2023, The New York Times newspaper brought charges against the head of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen, considering that she unreasonably refused to publish SMS messages in which in 2021 she agreed with Pfizer CEO Albert Burla on the provisions of contracts from 2021 to 2023 for the purchase of vaccines for the EU.

The plaintiff's lawyers are confident that this correspondence contains information of public importance. For a long time, the European Commission preferred not to comment on this topic, and then reported that "the correspondence was destroyed by mistake," so it would not be possible to make it public.

The plaintiff was able to "refute the presumption of non-existence and absence of the requested documents."

The decision of the European Court of Justice does not determine the degree of responsibility of the head of the European Commission. There are also no criminal or disciplinary measures against her. However, this may lead to new lawsuits against von der Leyen, and there may be more serious charges.

It is possible that lawyers from the European Commission will challenge this decision.

Personal correspondence

It all started when Pfizer CEO Albert Burla gave an interview to The New York Times in 2021, in which he mentioned an SMS conversation with Ursula von der Leyen, noting that they had managed to "establish deep trust," which subsequently led to successful negotiations on a major vaccine deal.

A month later, Brussels signed an agreement to purchase up to 1.8 billion doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19. The amount of the deal, which became the largest of all concluded by the European Union in the field of healthcare, has remained unknown. At various times, the media reported figures from €20 billion to €71 billion.

At the same time, the contract began to be agreed upon even before the completion of clinical trials of the vaccine.

After the publication of the interview, Ursula von der Leyen was suspected of collusion with Albert Burla. She herself only aggravated the situation by refusing to confirm the fact of correspondence with the CEO of Pfizer.

Subsequently, Brussels nevertheless admitted that the parties exchanged SMS messages, but refused to make the correspondence public, continuing to claim that the text messages did not inform about the conclusion of the contract.

Then it turned out that Ursula von der Leyen had overreacted with the amount of vaccine doses and at least 215 million doses of the coronavirus drug worth €4 billion had to be thrown away.

Reputational blow

This is not the first trial against Ursula von der Leyen. Earlier this year, the Liege court, with the active support of the European Union Prosecutor's Office, an EU agency directly subordinate to the European Commission, closed the trial against the head of the European Commission on the claim of Belgian activist Frederic Baldan, who was supported by about a thousand public organizations and individuals.

Most of them are EU citizens who have been affected by COVID—19 vaccines that have not passed clinical trials, as well as relatives of those who died as a result of side effects of vaccinations against the virus. They accused Ursula von der Leyen of corruption and abuse of office. However, the court considered that the head of the EC is immune from such legal proceedings.

In addition, von der Leyen has been criticized more than once for her authoritarian management style, as well as for departing from her obligations to protect the environment.

The current situation could result in a serious reputational blow for the head of the European Commission personally.

Natalia Eremina, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, notes in a conversation with Izvestia that the situation with covid policy will indeed resonate for a long time.

— There was no strict reporting during covid. We have seen how conflicts occurred between different countries, how states took away goods and humanitarian aid from each other, and assessed each other very negatively. In this murky water, many large corporations made money and signed contracts. And, of course, those officials who had the opportunity to pursue an independent policy and make independent decisions about who to sign contracts with have greatly enriched themselves," the expert believes.

The expert believes that this issue will now be put on the agenda by various participants in the political process in the EU. However, the opportunities to obtain information on these issues are seriously limited. — the analyst states. — We need to conduct a full-fledged investigation from the point of view of what Ursula von der Leyen herself did as President of the European Commission.

Meanwhile, Eremina stressed that Ursula von der Leyen had made very serious decisions as the head of the European Commission.

— The European Commission is a powerful institution of power. At the same time, the chairmen seem to feel a certain irresponsibility, since their predecessors also behaved the same way. There is no particularly strict control over them," the political scientist concluded.

Politico believes that the decision in the Pfizergate case will have huge consequences.

"It will undoubtedly overshadow von der Leyen's second five-year term of the EU presidency, which began very recently — on December 1. She is trying her best to maintain the importance of the European Commission in the face of increasing nationalist rhetoric within the European Union, but she has already been criticized for her tendency to centralize power and for abandoning her environmental obligations," the publication says.

The authors of the article are sure that this case is not easy for Ursula von der Leyen from a legal point of view. "After all, she has not only personally signed the largest vaccine contract in the EU for many billions of euros, but also chairs the very body tasked with ensuring compliance with EU laws that include the principles of transparency and accountability. If the court's decision is not in her favor, the numerous critics of the president of the European Commission will receive important tools of political pressure on her," the newspaper believes.