Brussels – An exchange of messages, of which there is no trace, before finalizing a critical and controversial trade agreement. The Pfizergate pattern repeats itself: this time, the conversation that disappeared from Ursula von der Leyen‘s phones is the one with French President Emmanuel Macron, in the midst of the negotiations conducted by the European Commission with the Mercosur countries. The European mediator, Teresa Anjinho, intervened in the case, launching an investigation.
The affair dates back to January 2024, essentially a year before the
conclusion of negotiations with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay for a free trade agreement that several governments of the member states opposed. In particular, the French. Von der Leyen is said to have exchanged a few messages on the subject with Macron at a time when France—and Brussels—were held hostage by the protesting farmers. Messages that an Austrian reporter from Follow the Money immediately asked about on 31 January 2024. .
According to Anjinho, the complainant received no response from the European Commission “for more than 15 months.” After submitting a further request for access to documents in May 2025, Brussels formally replied on 28 July 2025, stating that it had “carried out an exhaustive search but was unable to identify the text message at issue.”
Even though the request for access to the documents had already been submitted, von der Leyen herself and her head of cabinet, Bjoern Seibert, apparently decided that “there was no obligation to register the message” as an official document and therefore activated the disappearing messages feature of Signal, the messaging application most frequently used by the European institutions.
After receiving the complaint, the EU Ombudsman decided yesterday (24 September) to formally initiate an investigation into the European Commission’s handling of the request for access to messages. Anjinho will schedule a meeting with the Commission services to discuss and clarify the concrete timeline of events, and has asked the EU executive to provide her with several documents by 10 October 2025. These include the steps taken in dealing with the access request and documents “reflecting the Commission’s policy on the use of corporate phones and devices, instant messaging applications” and “message retention periods,” as well as information “on how the text message search was conducted.”
Only a month ago, the European Parliament saved von der Leyen from a motion of censure tabled by the extreme right, precisely regarding Pfizergate, the exchange—and deletion—of text messages between the EU leader and the Pfizer CEO regarding the purchase of vaccines during the pandemic. In October, two new votes of no confidence against the European Commission are scheduled to take place. The opposition is just waiting for von der Leyen to make a misstep. And the President — as Dario Tamburrano, M5S Member of the European Parliament, commented — “falls for it again.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
