Investigators are reportedly trying into non-public textual content messages between the European Fee president and the CEO of Pfizer
The EU’s prime prosecutors have taken over an ongoing corruption investigation into European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen, Politico reported on Monday citing an unnamed spokesperson for the Liege Prosecutor’s Workplace in Belgium.
The probe pertains to the acquisition of almost 2 billion Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses for the EU on the top of the coronavirus pandemic. The prosecution claims the EC chief negotiated the multi-billion-euro take care of the pharmaceutical large’s CEO, Alber Bourla, in non-public by way of textual content messages earlier than medical trials for the vaccine had been accomplished.
Von der Leyen has refused to reveal the content material of these messages, claiming she can not discover them.
Investigators from the European Public Prosecutor’s Workplace (EPPO), who’ve been engaged on the case for the previous few months, reportedly consider that Von der Leyen could also be responsible of “interference in public features, destruction of SMS, corruption and battle of curiosity,” based on authorized paperwork seen by Politico.
Regardless of the allegations and von der Leyen herself admitting that she privately communicated with Bourla for almost a month earlier than signing the almost €20 billion ($21.5 billion) deal, no formal prices have but been introduced towards the EC chief.
The case has been supported by the governments of Poland and Hungary, which have additionally filed official complaints about Von Der Leyen’s function within the vaccine negotiations, Politico’s sources stated. The outlet famous, nonetheless, that Warsaw moved to withdraw the grievance after Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s pro-EU authorities got here to energy final yr.
The New York Occasions, which first reported in 2021 that non-public conversations between Von Der Leyen and Bourla had certainly taken place previous to the signing of the vaccine deal, has additionally filed a lawsuit towards the EC for refusing to reveal the content material of the textual content messages and turning down a request for entry to paperwork.
The case towards the EC chief has garnered “extraordinarily excessive public curiosity,” based on EU officers, amid issues that the bloc bought considerably extra Covid pictures than had been vital.
In December final yr, Politico reported that EU states had dumped at the least 215 million doses, which had value taxpayers as a lot as €4 billion ($4.3 billion). Regardless of this, the vaccines will proceed flowing to the EU underneath the contract with Pfizer, at the least till 2027.
