Von der Leyen under attack for ‘Pfizergate’: case not new, but revived in election campaign

Brussels – Inaccessible contracts, unshared information, and impossible-to-access text messages because many SMS were destroyed. There is a revival of the Pfizergate case on Ursula von der Leyen, linked to contracts the European Commission signed with the pharmaceutical company to purchase massive doses of anti-COVID shots to respond to the health crisis after Ema’s green light to sell vaccines in the single market. However, the case seems to be revived in a (counter) election campaign key since the affair is not entirely new, given that von der Leyen has already been dragged to court for the case over a year ago.

The European Parliament, from the beginning, criticized contracts between the community executive and pharmaceutical companies for alleged lack of transparency on details and conditions. Even the European Ombudsman, back in January 2021, opened a file against the von der Leyen team for the alleged lack of transparency in the management of the negotiations. 

Von der Leyen was notified that the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (Eppo) took charge of the file, an event that would exacerbate doubts about the conduct of the EU executive. The European Prosecutor’s Office opened a file against the European Commission as early as October 2022 because of the sensitivity of the moment, the figures involved (billion-dollar contracts), and the complaints made. 

In essence, there don’t seem to be any new elements in an affair that belongs to the past. The Commission is accused of wasting 4 billion euros in vaccines bought and then thrown away, of which, however, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, accounted for last month, explaining that the goal, at the time of the health crisis, was to create stockpiles and that this resulted in deliberate over-purchases to make sure to guarantee EU vaccine coverage. “Member States are the legal owners of the Covid-19 vaccines procured  through (advance) purchase agreements concluded by the Commission on behalf of the Member States with vaccine manufacturers,” the Commissioner added. As owners, “they are responsible for overseeing the management of their national stockpiles”  and, therefore, their use and waste.

​Riding the wave of the moment are opposition forces: Kyriakides was responding to a question submitted by MEP Ioannis Lagos, a member of the Greek ultra-right.  Meanwhile, the League attacks: “The investigation by the European prosecutor’s office into the so-called Pfizergate case confirms the seriousness of the affair, on which the League in Europe has been calling for clarity since day one,” said Marco Zanni and (ID group president) and Marco Campomenosi, respectively president of the Identity and Democracy (Id) group and head of the League delegation in the European Parliament. 

The ‘Pfizergate’ affair invests the outgoing president of the European Commission, who is eager for a second term, but with elements to date that are certainly not new. The case breaks into the election campaign that von der Leyen has, in fact, already begun and which may be affected by this attack much more in the media than anywhere else.