Pfizergate refers to a scandal involving European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer over the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. The controversy centers on the lack of transparency in the communication and negotiation processes for purchasing a significant number of vaccine doses during the COVID-19 pandemic. [1]
In February 2021, the situation in the European Union due to the pandemic was worsening, as the lockdown continued, people kept dying, and the union's biggest vaccine supplier, AstraZeneca, was having production problems, which caused a shortage of doses. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that the EU was about to sign a deal with Pfizer worth €35 billion to provide 900 million doses of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine through 2023, with an additional 900 million doses available for purchase. [2]
On the 28th of April 2021, as the deal was about to be finalized, The New York Times reported that Ursula von der Leyen had personally negotiated the deal via a series of text messages and calls with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, describing it as "a striking alignment of political survival and corporate hustle". [2] [3]
Throughout the Summer of 2021, the German news website Netzpolitik.org requested access to these messages, but the request was refused. Afterwards, they turned to the European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, who opened an investigation on the 16th of September. She too was refused access to the messages, with the Commission claiming they had no obligation to conserve the messages. This statements led the Ombudsman to file a complaint in January 2022, accusing them of maladministration and urging the EU executive to "conduct a more thorough search for relevant messages". In response, EU Transparency Commissioner Věra Jourová said the search for text messages between von der Leyen and Bourla "did not yield any results". Finally, on the 12th of July 2022, the Ombudsman severely criticized the Commission and, against that background, confirmed her finding of maladministration. [1] [4] [5]
Later, in October, the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), an independent EU body responsible for investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, exceptionally confirmed that it had an ongoing investigation into the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines in the European Union. [3] [6] In the same month, Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas stated in defense of the Commission that "the handling of this access to documents request leaves the regrettable impression of an EU institution that is not forthcoming on matters of significant public interest", adding that "nobody can negotiate the complexity of these contracts, by SMS or alone. This was a very well-structured procedure between the member states and the Commission". [5]
In January 2023, lawmakers in the Parliament's special committee on COVID-19 proposed to invite von der Leyen to answer questions on the contract. However, in February, the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament refused the request to hold a public grilling. Instead they decided to ask von der Leyen to answer questions in private at some point in the future. [7]
In April 2023, Frédéric Baldan, a Belgian lobbyist specializing in EU-China trade relation, filed a lawsuit against von der Leyen before a Liège court, accusing her of usurping official powers, destroying public documents, pursuing illicit interests and committing corruption, and damaging his country's public finances. Shortly after, Baldan's lobbyist accreditation was withdrawn by the European Parliament. [3] [8]
In early May 2024, a few days before the hearing in Liège was supposed to take place, Baldan's lawyer, Diane Protat, visited the EPPO's offices in Brussels and Luxembourg to request a copy of its case file, but was she told that there was no such file and security was called on her. A a few days later, it was reported that Hungary and Poland had joined the lawsuit. [3] [9] By the end of the month, the plaintiff asked "the European People's Party to withdraw the candidacy of Ms von der Leyen for the post of President of the European Commission" as well as "prohibiting anyone from presenting the candidature of Mrs von der Leyen to the post of President of the European Commission or any other post within the European institutions as long as she is the subject of criminal proceedings". [8]
The central issue of this case is whether citizens should have access to documents, including ephemeral digital messages, that are integral to decision-making processes. This ruling could set a precedent for transparency within the EU, as the European Court of Justice would need to clarify what constitutes a document that citizens can request access to. It's also been suggested that a favorable ruling might prompt lawmakers to implement measures to protect high-level EU politicians from having to fully disclose their text messages. [10]
The term "Pfizergate" was also used after a report from the British Medical Journal raised concerns over the data integrity and regulatory oversight of the Pfizer vaccine trials. [11] [12]
The European Ombudsman is an inter-institutional body of the European Union that holds the institutions, bodies and agencies of the EU to account, and promotes good administration. The Ombudsman helps people, businesses and organisations facing problems with the EU administration by investigating complaints, as well as by proactively looking into broader systemic issues. The current Ombudsman is Emily O'Reilly.
The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) is an independent body of the European Union (EU) with juridical personality, established under the Treaty of Lisbon between 24 of the 27 states of the EU following the method of enhanced cooperation. The EPPO was established as a response to the need for a prosecutorial body to combat crimes affecting the financial interests of the European Union (EU). The idea of establishing the EPPO gained momentum with a legislative proposal put forth by the European Commission in 2013. After lengthy negotiations and discussions within the European Council, the European Parliament and Member States, Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 was adopted on October 12, 2017, formalizing the creation of the EPPO. The EPPO Regulation is the EPPO's legal basis, as it outlines the objectives, structure, jurisdiction, and operational procedures. Directive (EU) 2017/1371, also known as the PIF Directive, specifies the criminal offenses affecting the EU's financial interest falling under the EPPO's jurisdiction. The EPPO's primary mandate is to investigate and prosecute offenses such as fraud, corruption, and money laundering that harm the financial interests of the EU, as defined by the PIF Directive. The EPPO represents a significant step towards a more integrated and effective approach to combating transnational crimes within the EU, fostering collaboration and coordination among member states to protect the Union's financial resources. As an independent EU body, the EPPO plays a crucial role in ensuring the rule of law and safeguarding the integrity of the EU's financial system. The EPPO is based in Kirchberg, Luxembourg City alongside the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Auditors (ECA).
Relations between the European Union (EU) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) or Sino–European relations are bilateral relations that were established in 1975 between the PRC and the European Community. The EU is the PRC's largest trading partner, and the PRC is the EU's largest trade partner.
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen is a German politician, serving as the 13th president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet, most recently as federal minister of defence. She is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its affiliated europarty, the European People's Party (EPP). On 7 March 2024, the EPP elected her as its Spitzenkandidat to lead the campaign for the 2024 European parliament elections. She was re-elected to head the Commission in July 2024.
Adina-Ioana Vălean is a Romanian politician who has been serving as European Commissioner for Transport under the leadership of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen since 2019. She previously served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2007 until 2019, where she chaired of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy in 2019.
Heiko Echter von der Leyen is a German physician. He was born into the von der Leyen family in Hanover, which belonged to the German nobility. Von der Leyen is married to Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission since 2019.
The State of the Union address, also known as the State of the European Union or SOTEU, is the annual speech addressed by the President of the European Commission to the European Parliament plenary session in September. The State of the Union address of the European Union was instituted by the Lisbon Treaty, in order to make political life of the Union more democratic and transparent than it previously had been.
The von der Leyen Commission is the current European Commission, in office since 1 December 2019 and is to last until the formation of the forthcoming Second Von der Leyen Commission. It consists of one commissioner from each of the member states of the European Union – including Ursula von der Leyen, its president, who is from Germany.
The Conference on the Future of Europe was a proposal of the European Commission and the European Parliament, announced at the end of 2019, with the aim of looking at the medium- to long-term future of the EU and what reforms should be made to its policies and institutions. It is intended that the Conference should involve citizens, including a significant role for young people, civil society, and European institutions as equal partners and last for two years. It will be jointly organised by the European Parliament, the EU Council and the European Commission. On 19 April 2021, the multilingual digital platform of the Conference futureu.europa.eu was launched.
Events from 2020 in the European Union.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its spread in Europe has had significant effects on some major EU members countries and on European Union institutions, especially in the areas of finance, civil liberties, and relations between member states.
BioNTech SE is a German biotechnology company based in Mainz that develops and manufactures active immunotherapies for patient-specific approaches to the treatment of diseases. It develops pharmaceutical candidates based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) for use as individualized cancer immunotherapies, as vaccines against infectious diseases and as protein replacement therapies for rare diseases, and also engineered cell therapy, novel antibodies and small molecule immunomodulators as treatment options for cancer.
COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, abbreviated as COVAX, is a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines directed by the GAVI vaccine alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the World Health Organization (WHO), alongside key delivery partner UNICEF. It is one of the four pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, an initiative begun in April 2020 by the WHO, the European Commission, and the government of France as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVAX coordinates international resources to enable low-to-middle-income countries equitable access to COVID-19 tests, therapies, and vaccines. UNICEF is the key delivery partner, leveraging its experience as the largest single vaccine buyer in the world and working on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccine doses, as well as logistics, country readiness and in-country delivery.
Albert Bourla is a Greek-American veterinarian and businessman known for serving as the chairman and chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. He joined the company in 1993 and has held several executive roles across Pfizer's divisions. Prior to becoming chief executive officer, Bourla was chief operating officer.
The Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, sold under the brand name Comirnaty, is an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine developed by the German biotechnology company BioNTech. For its development, BioNTech collaborated with the American company Pfizer to carry out clinical trials, logistics, and manufacturing. It is authorized for use in humans to provide protection against COVID-19, caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The vaccine is given by intramuscular injection. It is composed of nucleoside-modified mRNA (modRNA) that encodes a mutated form of the full-length spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which is encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles. Initial guidance recommended a two-dose regimen, given 21 days apart; this interval was subsequently extended to up to 42 days in the United States, and up to four months in Canada.
The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Italy is a mass immunization campaign that was put in place by the Italian government in order to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It started on 27 December 2020, together with most countries in the European Union.
A dispute broke out in January 2021 between the European Commission and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca AB about the provision of COVID-19 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, and, in February, spilled out into a dispute over Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Vaccination proceeded apace in the UK but more slowly in the EU, and by the end of March 2021, over 30% of the UK population had received at least one dose of vaccine compared to about 8% of the EU population. This was partly due to limited availability of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the EU. The World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency continued to state that the vaccine was safe and effective. However, a representative of the European Medicines Agency said in June that vaccines based on the mRNA technology should be preferred if available for all age groups, including for the over 60s.
The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Albania is a mass immunization campaign that was put in place by the Albanian authorities in order to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It started on 11 January 2021.
Sofagate is a diplomatic protocol incident that happened during the visit of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Charles Michel to Turkey in April 2021. When Michel and von der Leyen were to meet with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, there were only two chairs and two sofas in the room in which they were received. Michel then seated himself in the chair beside Erdoğan while von der Leyen was offered to take a seat on a sofa in the same room across the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. Michel as a man took the more prominent position than von der Leyen as a woman, despite both having the title President. Many commentators described the incident as sexist, as did von der Leyen herself. Later on, Çavuşoğlu called the accusations against Turkey "unfair", saying that the seating arrangement was made in accordance with the requests of the European side and added protocol officials always "meet and discuss the arrangement before each visit."
Events from 2022 in the European Union.