I don't know how many European citizens would have put a penny on Wednesday night for Ursula von der Leyen's election the next day...
I don't know how many European citizens would have put a penny on Wednesday night for the election of Ursula von der Leyen the next day. Of course, if he was informed at all about the judgment of the European Court of that day. What many were waiting for finally happened, the entire committee and its reigning chairwoman were condemned. Twenty-four hours before the European Parliament election procedure! According to the court, the chairwoman of the committee committed a serious violation of the law when she did not inform the general public (meaning: MEPs) about the details of the €37 billion vaccine procurement contract. Because it is clear from this that the committee put the business interests of pharmaceutical companies before the main EU value, transparency. The reason for the secrecy is that the vaccine manufacturer did not take responsibility for the possible health consequences of the vaccinations, as the urgency overrode the WHO's mandatory protocol.
If anyone sues for health damage, the defendant is not the company that produces the vaccine, but the EU and its member states, and they must also pay for the compensation.
The fight to overcome the epidemic and for the lives of European citizens superseded all protocols and gave the principals an exemption with regard to the content of the contract and the way the order was placed.
The vaccine procurement scandal, the so-called Pfizer case, has many components.
Ursula von der Leyen took over the management of procurement without any authorization, she acted arbitrarily,
if necessary, by SMS, if the manufacturer so desired, even contracts concluded against the interests of the member countries. It violated competition law when it created a monopoly for the German company BioNTech. Along the way, the manufacturer raised the price of the vaccine by 25 percent, but the committee paid like a military officer, even though four billion euros worth of expired vaccine had to be destroyed at the time due to the oversized order. This thread, which grew to the size of a beam, caught the eye of many. The European Public Prosecutor's Office investigated on suspicion of a crime, SMS transactions were investigated by the EU Ombudsman, and even a Belgian journalist turned to the supposedly independent civil court. Several people joined the lawsuit, for example the Hungarian state - and until Donald Tusk came to power - the Polish state as well. The independent court accepted the claim, but the trial was postponed to the fall of 2024, and even the accelerated procedure was rejected. They did not want to influence the course of the European Parliament elections with this matter. The question arises, how far will the hands of Ursula von der Leyen and the global power behind her reach? Who are those who prevent the discovery of the truth?
At the European Court of Justice, the Greens filed a complaint against the committee and the president's wife, and they probably arranged for the verdict to be handed down the day before the election. I can also see how Ursula is desperately running between Brussels and Strasbourg to give in to the green blackmail, i.e. to promise them whatever they want in exchange for their votes. Because he really needed 53 votes from the Greens for his re-election. It was the same with the liberals, in their unprincipled/unprincipled way, they only said after the verdict that Ursula must make concessions for their vote.
From the results of the election, it seems that they conducted successful negotiations, the blackmail worked.
The small ball of the People's Party made a deal with the Socialists already weeks before, they promised the vice-presidential positions, a disproportionate number, the faction of one hundred and thirty-six received five, while the conservatives and patriots, who together have 182 mandates, only got one seat. This is how the "extreme center" was created, perhaps the best name for the formation that will now govern the European Union for five years. Pious European citizens with conservative values, as usual, pulled the plug on the People's Party candidates, and they joined forces with all the factions to the left of them, creating the extremist middle ground.
But don't think that was all! Ursula wanted to be sure, and she knew that her biggest opponent - or rather her "boss", Viktor Orbán, a recognized and experienced politician, could prevent her re-election despite all the dirty deals. After all, Orbán has said countless times that he is dissatisfied with the leadership of the EU, including with him personally. But despite being his boss, he has only one vote in the loyal Council of European Bosses. Orbán lived with it, he was the only one who voted against it, and he would certainly have woven into his series of presidential program speeches why he is dissatisfied with the five-year performance of the president's wife. Therefore, in the dense weekly program, they somehow didn't find a place for the president's speech, even though it should have been the beginning of the series of plenary sessions. On Friday, after the election, Orbán could have already spoken, by which time the well-paid representatives are no longer there, the long weekend begins. Like the Di-Mi-Do professors in German universities who are only willing to give lectures from Tuesday to Thursday.
Then there is the "non-coordinated" peace mission, which has indeed elicited the support of the vast majority of European citizens. There were those who directly proposed the Hungarian Prime Minister for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was able to secure in Brussels that the leader of a despised "Eastern European" country would travel around the world in ten days, be received everywhere at the highest level, and discuss the possibility of peace with the world's leading politicians. Because everyone seems to want to end the war in Ukraine except for Brussels and today's Washington.
The peace tour shows the weight and authority of Hungarian diplomacy, but it conflicts with Ursula's plans in Brussels. Therefore, the boycott was quickly removed from the political toolbox
(sanctions cannot be imposed against a member state), and Ursula announced that the committee would only send negotiators to Budapest, at the ministerial level, at the official level. What a pitiáner figure, what an insidious attempt to discredit! The Baltic states, the fraternal Finns and Estonians, the democratic Swedes and the Poles who have become so have already joined the announced boycott, I would wait for the little ones, but it seems that the Central European region thinks differently about the Brussels issue. The Hungarian EU presidency cannot be prevented (they really want it), so they try to devalue it and make it impossible.
Out of superstition, Ursula put on the same pink blazer and black pants she had worn five years ago. It didn't even occur to him that he would withdraw or postpone the election because of the previous day's verdict. He sure did.
Lobbying, bargaining, promises, and selling out brought results,
four hundred and one representatives found him suitable for the next five-year leadership of the European Commission. These people have either slept through the past five years, or have been enjoying all its blessings in their growing bank accounts. It is also possible that they did not even hear about the court verdict because they did not want bad news to influence their decision. And they were happy when, after the election, they read in the most authoritative German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that they had elected a real politician, an iron-willed president who could steer the ship of the European Union even in times of crisis, amid ups and downs. The member countries still need such an experienced and committed crisis manager, who has been hardened by the coronavirus epidemic and Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The one who can always manage his own crisis situations, because he slips out of everything like a fish.
The author is a historian
Source: Magyar Hírlap
Cover photo: Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, congratulates Manfred Weber, Group Leader of the European People's Party (EPP)
MTI/EPA/Patrick Seeger
