Ursula von der Leyen may be reprimanded by the European Union's budget inspectors because of the contract with Biontech-Pfizer, the Berliner Morgenpost reports, citing its own information. The second most-read newspaper in the German capital knows that the air around the president of the European Commission is running out, and further investigations are expected, because in May 2021, he signed an amazing 35 billion euro contract with the company for the purchase of 1.8 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
This is the vaccine procurement in which Hungary did not want to participate, according to the reasoning of Gergely Gulyás, the minister in charge of the Prime Minister's Office, 19 million Pfizer vaccines should have been ordered and paid for, regardless of whether the vaccines will be needed. "Hungary cannot participate in this 120 billion dollar adventure," said the head of the ministry. At the time, moreover, it was not made public that
von der Leyen practically negotiated the details with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla via SMS.
Of course, an investigation was launched into the matter, and the EU ombudsman concluded that von der Leyen's staff deliberately hindered their work when they claimed that they had not found any text messages between the EC president and Bourla. It later emerged that only the internal document register was reviewed, not the text messages, saying that they were too "short-lived" and therefore not covered by EU legislation on the retention of policy-related documents. However, according to Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly's point of view
the behavior of the members of the Commission did not meet the transparency required by EU rules, and they did not even attempt to conduct comprehensive research on the matter.
According to a Guardian analysis, the European Union paid a total of 31 billion euros to Pfizer above the cost of producing the vaccines.
Source: vg.hu
Featured image: Credit: John Thys / AFP
