Little deals between friends
A report by the European Court of Auditors [1], the “guardian of the EU’s finances”, points to failings on the part of the President of the European Commission in the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines. BAM! has selected the “juiciest” passages for its readers.
It is March 2021, and the European Commission’s first vaccine order (600 million doses) is slow to be delivered in full... Ursula von der Leyen decides to launch new negotiations with Pfizer in order to place a second order. This is the largest Covid vaccine purchase contract the Commission has signed, covering the delivery of 900 million vaccine doses in 2022 and 2023, with the option of ordering 900 million additional doses. In other words, a mega deal estimated at around 35 billion euros, for delivery at a time when more than 70% of the European population would already have been vaccinated.
The “murky” role of the President of the European Commission
While at first glance the European Court of Auditors’ report seems “positive”, welcoming the sufficient supply of vaccine doses despite a “difficult start”, reading between the lines it points the finger at the “murky” role of the President of the European Commission (without ever naming her) in the negotiations for this second mega deal. Indeed, Ursula von der Leyen allegedly did not follow the procedure that had been set up specifically for the Covid crisis. The report states explicitly: “In mid-March 2021, the steering board agreed to hold a meeting with scientific advisers from the EU and the Member States on the scientific aspects of the vaccine strategy for 2022. No such meeting ever took place. During March 2021, the President of the Commission conducted the preliminary negotiations for a contract with Pfizer/BioNTech. This is the only contract for which the joint negotiation team did not take part in this stage of the negotiations, contrary to what is provided for in the Commission decision on the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines”.
The report also highlights a lack of transparency on the part of the Commission and its President: “We received no information on the preliminary negotiations for the EU’s largest contract […]. We asked the Commission to provide us with information on the preliminary negotiations for this contract (the scientific experts consulted and the advice received, the timeline of the negotiations, the minutes of the discussions and the details of the agreed terms). Our request went unanswered.”
“A case of maladministration”
And finally it adds: “Moreover, on 16 September 2021 the European Ombudsman opened an inquiry into the separate question of the European Commission’s refusal to grant public access to text messages exchanged between the President of the Commission and the chief executive officer of Pfizer at the time of the preliminary negotiations. In her report of 26 January 2022, she considers that the way in which the Commission handled the request made to it constitutes a case of maladministration.”
Despite such a report by a European oversight body, there is no political sanction on the horizon. Since Ms von der Leyen probably did not act without the backing of a majority of member countries, it was left to the European Parliament to act as a counterweight and a safeguard. Yet, as can be seen both within the Member States and at European level, in recent years legislative and parliamentary assemblies have failed to find their place as a counter-power to increasingly omnipotent executives that ignore the most basic rules of good governance on the pretext of emergency or crisis…
Another solution could be, as MEP Michèle Rivasi suggests, for “the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to take up this case in order to restore citizens’ trust in the European institutions as a matter of urgency.” [2] The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is indeed a new independent institution that started work in 2020, whose role is to investigate and prosecute fraud involving the EU budget and other crimes against the EU’s financial interests.
By Sandra Ferretti
[1] L’UE et l’acquisition de vaccins contre la COVID-19
[2] https://twitter.com/MicheleRivasi/status/1569699467519033346
Other sources:
EU stonewalls over von der Leyen’s role in multibillion-euro Pfizer vaccine deal – POLITICO
Photo source:
BAM! screenshot © Atlantic Council
