A Belgian court in Liege dismissed a lawsuit against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for alleged corruption related to the purchase of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lawsuit was based on text messages von der Leyen exchanged with the head of vaccine maker Pfizer during vaccine negotiations, her lawyer Adrien Masset said on Tuesday. Liege’s court of appeal also “declared inadmissible” complaints filed by former Belgian lobbyist Frederic Baldan in 2023.
Baldan said von der Leyen had exceeded her authority and breached the commission’s code of conduct.
The EU has now become an area of non-freedom, insecurity and injustice.
The case was joined by anti-vaccine groups and activists, as well as Hungary and Poland.
When the COVID pandemic broke out in 2020, the EU sought to secure vaccines for member states amid high global demand. However, a lack of transparency over procurement from key supplier Pfizer led to several lawsuits.
Another complaint filed by The New York Times against the commission for not publishing the texts despite a freedom of information request is pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). According to The NYT, the EU chief was discussing a contract to purchase 1.8 billion doses of COVID vaccines.
Lawsuits against the European Commission were filed by The NYT and Bild Due over the refusal to make the correspondence text public. The German edition managed to get access to some of the documents related to the negotiations on the purchase of vaccines, but the court rejected some of the claims.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) launched an ongoing investigation into the procurement of vaccines in 2022 with EU funds. However, the Commission does not dispute the existence of the text messages, but states that they were not part of the vaccine talks and are no longer available.
As a result, Baldan filed another complaint, but against the EPPO in January this year, according to The Brussels Times. He denounced alleged delaying tactics by the EPPO to cover up the case.
The EPPO has taken Belgian justice hostage with its various requests. Are there any obstacles to the investigating judge’s investigative work? [The EPPO] wants to recover the file, but already believes that there are no suspects.
