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A court in Liege, Belgium, is due to consider whether European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has legal immunity against corruption charges related to her murky involvement in the purchase of coronavirus vaccines. What is the scandal all about? Sputnik explores.
In 2022, US media reported that von der Leyen had communicated with Albert Bourla, chief executive of the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, about clinching a long-term contract to purchase 1.8 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines worth €35 billion ($37.6 billion), even before they passed clinical trials.
Negotiations on the deal were conducted informally in late 2020 via SMS messages and without prior consent of EU member states.
The European Commission President also texted her husband, Heiko von der Leyen, who serves as the medical director at Orgenesis, a company that collaborates with Pfizer. All the messages were then accidentally deleted, Ursula von der Leyen claimed.
As a result, she has been accused of “usurpation of functions and title,” destruction of public documents, and high-level corruption charges that were initiated by Belgian lobbyist Frederic Baldan.
The first hearing on his complaint was held on 17 May 2024, when the Liege court confirmed that the so-called Pfizegate case is in line with its jurisdiction and should not be handed to the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), created on the initiative of von der Leyen herself, due to an obvious conflict of interests.
The second hearing slated for December 5 was actually disrupted due to a demarche by the EPPO, which sent a counter-request to the court for von der Leyen's immunity. The EPPO argues that von der Leyen has immunity from prosecution for corruption.
European Commission spokesperson Stefan de Keersmaecker said on January 5 that von der Leyen had canceled all "external engagements" in the coming days after contracting "severe pneumonia."
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