European Commission Under Investigation: EPPO Delves into Vaccine Negotiation Allegations

Brussels (Brussels Morning) – EPPO probes alleged misconduct in the European Commission’s vaccine negotiations (‘Pfizergate’), involving President Ursula von der Leyen. Transparency and accountability concerns escalate.

Leading European prosecutors are probing allegations of criminal misconduct in connection with vaccine negotiations between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of Pfizer, according to a representative from the Liège prosecutor’s office.

Investigators from the EU Public Prosecutor’s Office have in recent months carried over from Belgian prosecutors scrutinising von der Leyen over “interference in public procedures, destruction of SMS, corruption and conflict of interest. 

The probe was originally unlocked by Belgian judicial authorities in the city of Liège in early 2023 after a criminal objection was lodged by local lobbyist Frédéric Baldan. He was later accommodated by the Hungarian and Polish governments — although the latter is in the procedure of withdrawing its objection after the election success by a pro-EU government led by Donald Tusk, a Polish government spokesperson told Media.  

Baldan’s complaint focused on an alleged exchange of text notes between von der Leyen and Pfizer boss Albert Bourla in the run-up to the EU’s biggest vaccine contract at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, in an affair anointed “Pfizergate.” New York Times, which first disclosed that the exchange had carried place as the two leaders hashed out the duration of the deal, has established a parallel lawsuit against the Commission after it declined to disclose the content of the notes following an access to documents request.  

Information that EPPO is now investigating the case risks placing further scrutiny on the Commission president’s position in the mega vaccine deal, which had an assessed value of over €20 billion. EPPO conducts pan-European investigations into financial crimes, and in theory, could capture phones and other appropriate material from Commission offices or in other countries in the EU such as von der Leyen’s native Germany. The development reaches at a delicate moment for the EU’s chief, as she steers the transition to what Brussels watchers expect will be a second term as the leader of the Berlaymont. 

The Commission has so far declined to reveal the content of the text messages, or even demonstrate their existence. The deal, arranged at the height of the pandemic in 2021, was originally noticed as a triumph for von der Leyen. But the insubstantial amount of vaccines purchased has since extended eyebrows, with disclosing late last year that there was at least €4 billion worth of wasted doses. The vaccine agreement with Pfizer has since been renegotiated. 

Transparency campaigners and some political opponents have aimed to put pressure on the Commission to examine the case, but von der Leyen has so far evaded addressing it. In a reply to a direct query put to her by a Journalist about bypassing text messages, von der Leyen said: “Everything required about that has been said and exchanged. And we will wait for the results.”  In 2022, EPPO revealed it was looking into the EU’s vaccine procurement more naturally, but this is the first time that the office has been connected with Pfizergate explicitly.

The case now being examined at by EPPO brings together several additional legal, political and financial strands — and it crosses with lawsuits that pharmaceutical Pfizer carried against Hungary and Poland. 

Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán, a firm opponent of von der Leyen, also filed an objection in connection to the Commission president’s position in vaccine negotiations with Pfizer. Poland lodged its complaint last November, a Polish government spokesperson affirmed.