1 Apr, 2024 16:23
EU prosecutors take up Von der Leyen corruption probe - Politico
Investigators are reportedly looking into private text messages between the European Commission president and the CEO of Pfizer

The EU's top prosecutors have taken over an ongoing corruption investigation into European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Politico reported on Monday citing an unnamed spokesperson for the Liege Prosecutor's Office in Belgium.

The probe relates to the purchase of nearly two billion Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses for the EU at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The prosecution claims the EC chief negotiated the multi-billion-euro deal with the pharmaceutical giant's CEO, Alber Bourla, in private via text messages before clinical trials for the vaccine were completed.

Von der Leyen has refused to disclose the content of those messages, claiming she cannot find them.

Investigators from the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), who have been working on the case for the past few months, reportedly believe that Von der Leyen may be guilty of "interference in public functions, destruction of SMS, corruption and conflict of interest," according to legal documents seen by Politico.

Despite the allegations and von der Leyen herself admitting that she privately communicated with Bourla for nearly a month before signing the nearly €20 billion ($21.5 billion) deal, no formal charges have yet been brought against the EC chief.

The case has been supported by the governments of Poland and Hungary, which have also filed official complaints about Von der Leyen's role in the vaccine negotiations, Politico's sources said. The outlet noted, however, that Warsaw moved to withdraw the complaint after Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-EU government came to power last year.

The New York Times, which first reported in 2021 that private conversations between Von der Leyen and Bourla had indeed taken place prior to the signing of the vaccine deal, has also filed a lawsuit against the EC for refusing to disclose the content of the text messages and turning down a request for access to documents.

The case against the EC chief has garnered "extremely high public interest," according to EU officials, amid concerns that the bloc purchased significantly more Covid shots than were necessary.

In December last year, Politico reported that EU states had dumped at least 215 million doses, which had cost taxpayers as much as €4 billion ($4.3 billion). Despite this, the vaccines will continue flowing to the EU under the contract with Pfizer, at least until 2027.

Finally, EU President Ursula von der Leyen has suddenly dramatically increased economic warfare on China, pushing the European Commission to open probes on scores of Chinese exports. Where exactly did all this come from?

It's almost as if the US and its allies seized upon the tensions between Iran and Israel in order to "whitewash" their slate and double down on a series of objectives they are otherwise losing public support for, including the war in Ukraine, but also Israel's invasion of Gaza. One has to wonder if the Israeli attack on the Iranian compound in Damascus, which provoked Tehran's response, was deliberately staged, coordinated and planned for this purpose. It served the mutually convenient goal of letting both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Western governments off the hook for whatever opposition they had otherwise faced.

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On 22 June 1941, German armies with a massive Romanian support attacked the Soviet Union. German and Romanian units conquered Bessarabia, Odessa, and Sevastopol, then marched eastward across the Russian steppes toward Stalingrad. Romania welcomed the war because it allowed them to retake lands annexed by the Soviet Union a year prior. Hitler rewarded Romania's loyalty by returning Bessarabia and northern Bukovina and by allowing Romania to administer Soviet lands immediately between the Dniester and the Bug, including Odessa and Nikolaev.^[11] Romanian jingoes in Odessa even distributed a geography showing that the Dacians had inhabited most of southern Russia.^[1][12] After recovering Bessarabia and Bukovina (Operation München), Romanian units fought side by side with the Germans onward to Odessa, Sevastopol, Stalingrad and the Caucasus. The total number of troops involved on the Eastern Front with the Romanian Third Army and the Romanian Fourth Army was second only to that of Nazi Germany itself. The Romanian Army had a total of 686,258 men under arms in the summer of 1941 and a total of 1,224,691 men in the summer of 1944.^[13]The number of Romanian troops sent to fight in the Soviet Union exceeded that of all of Germany's other allies combined.