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EU Commission says it cannot find messages with Pfizer CEO

282 points by Markoff 4y ago

soueuls 4y ago
The amount of corruption in the UE is insanely huge. This has been going on for the past 20 years. I left and I am not coming back. When I used to live in France, I paid between 70% and 75% taxes as a middle class employee. And you keep wondering, where does all the money go? - Statistics do not look good ? Forbid the statistics - Champion's league final, French/British/Spanish families have been threatened, attacked, stolen by hordes. Let's pretend it was because of the British fans, because a diplomatic crisis with them is a lot easier than weeks of chaos with the people living in Saint-Denis. The economy looks bad, the idea of having one currency to accommodate countries with vastly different needs is a stupid idea. Every time a country does not follow order, it gets threatened until it does. Oh, and of course, the last time we ask the French (for example) in 2005, whether they agreed about the EU Constitution they voted "NO". But somehow, someone decided that it must have been "YES".
collyw 4y ago
Corruption. Plain and simple.
Markoff 4y ago
The European Commission has been unable to find the text messages exchanged between president Ursula von der Leyen and the boss of giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the EU executive said in a letter to the EU ombudsman published on Wednesday (29 June). Last year, the New York Times first revealed that von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had been exchanging texts and calls for months to seal a deal for 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. The messages were then requested by journalist Alexander Fanta of news site netzpolitik.org, and a regular EUobserver writer, given the importance of the deal. But the commission's refusal to grant access to these communications prompted the EU ombudsman Emily O'Reilly to criticise how the commission handled this freedom of information request. Earlier this year, O'Reilly found that the commission staff had never explicitly asked the president's office to look for the text messages — calling on the EU executive to do a more exhaustive search. The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of "short-lived and ephemeral" communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents. "The commission can confirm that the search undertaken by the President's cabinet for relevant text messages corresponding to the request for access to documents has not yielded any results," the EU transparency commissioner Vera Jourova said in the letter to the ombudsman. The commission's response has been slammed by the ombudsman's office as "problematic" — with a full analysis expected to be published in the coming weeks. In its response, the commission also says that it is considering recommending its staff not use messaging apps in a business context — which would, as a result, eliminate the need to keep a record of such instant communications. Nevertheless, the lack of transparency surrounding these texts has triggered outrage among MEPs and civil society organisations — who criticised the commission for using tricks to avoid accountability. Belgian socialist MEP Kathleen Van Brempt, who chairs the parliament's special committee on Covid-19, deemed the commission response as "unacceptable". "The complete lack of transparency benefits the industry, not the European citizens," she tweeted. The campaign SumOfUs has collected nearly 130,000 signatures in the EU to ask von der Leyen to publish the text messages. Meanwhile, MEPs have been calling on the commission to reveal information on vaccine prices, since only a small group of lawmakers had access to heavily-redacted versions of the contracts.
andrewclunn 4y ago
Did they look in the same place that the evidence from Epstein's island is stored? Plausible deniability + "expert opinion" serving as the null hypothesis = institutional control of Occam's razor. I for one don't think there's anything about collusion or corruption here unless proof is presented... and since proof can't be found: nothing to see here, move along. I'm sure our government agencies and these multinational corporations have our best interests at heart.
- calibas 4y ago
  "We destroyed all the evidence that would prove our innocence, so you'll just have to trust us when we say we did nothing wrong."
_fizz_buzz_ 4y ago
This has a bit of a but-her-emails vibe to it. In an ideal world more official channels should have been used, but this was the height of the pandemic. If Von der Leyen had done nothing, it would be a way bigger scandal. I am glad the vaccine doses were secured by the european commission.
- redeeman 4y ago
  thats all well and good, assuming we use the same forgiving logic when you or I do something against the rules. But we dont. It seems that some are slightly more equal to the law than others
  - chki 4y ago
    Actually where I live (EU) the law is pretty forgiving – at least in my opinion.
    - pfortuny 4y ago
      Not so,fast. Look at fiscal law and its enforcement first and then tell me. I live there, too.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - redeeman 4y ago
      I live in the EU aswell, and in my country, the burden of proof for tax cases is reversed. The tax department can just invent their version of reality, and if I cannot disprove it, it sticks.
- qsdf38100 4y ago
  Yeah it’s sad to see EU bashing at this level on HN. Putin would love this. "EU is corrupt and rotten, save democracy and leave EU! Oh and leave NATO while you’re at it."
tlear 4y ago
Let's create a massive self regulating bureaucratic monster, then be surprised when it engages in corruption and coverup.
- tchalla 4y ago
  Can you explain the corruption here?
  - pfortuny 4y ago
    Just a link I found: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commission-guilty-of-maladministration-over-pfizer-texts-ursula-von-der-leyen-covid-vaccine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commi...
- revertmean 4y ago
  The EU bureaucracy has around 33,000 civil servants, so it's not particularly massive. Compare with the UK government, which has around 475,000 civil servants. In fact, there are English local councils that have bigger bureaucracies. And, of course, the EU has a bigger population than the USA. Why don't you check out how many Federal government bureaucrats there are, just for fun? This idea that the EU is a massive bureaucratic entity is seriously, factually wrong.
  - blibble 4y ago
    > This idea that the EU is a massive bureaucratic entity are seriously, factually wrong. that's because the EU uses national agencies to implement its policies it is purely the super-high level management e.g. the employees implementing EU farming/farming policy are employed by the member states goverments, aren't classed as EU employees and aren't paid by the EU budget, despite nearly 100% of their work coming directly from the EU so of course it looks super-efficient, because national governments are paying to implement what it decides this is in contrast to the US federal government, or your UK government/local government examples, which have to employ people to do the groundwork if the spending was correctly attributed the EU budget would be orders of magnitude bigger, as would its number of civil servants
colpabar 4y ago
Haha, whoopsie! I love funny little mistakes between governmental leaders and billion dollar corporations like this. Good thing this isn’t regular citizens using an encrypted messaging app, because then we’d have a real problem.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tokinonagare 4y ago
  Yep, crazy how transparent and democratic the whole affair and the EU is. I'm glad the EU and its subject governments are reminding me daily how they protect democratic values, how corrupted Russia (and sometimes China) is with all its oligarchs, and how they're protecting and extending my rights.
  - lnsru 4y ago
    The good think is that EU is not holding you back from experiencing perfect democracy in Russia or China. Maybe you can become a poster boy/girl as a political refugee from rotten West there.
    - orestarod 4y ago
      I don't know if that's what you imply, but the correct mindset for every problem is not "Be happy it's not worse", it's "Why the f*ck is it not better and how will we make it so?".
    - yeaso9 4y ago
      The point is humans are humans. The rest of philosophical gibberish. If you want to enjoy life in the US, better be good at tech. Cost of living and minimum wage create a de facto communist quota system, and until Papa Musk is happy with units shipped, we’re going to hear about it! Society could apply industrialism to biological health and resiliency and a lot of free time to explore existence, but that won’t help vain angry men earn military prestige, or vain socialites earn social status if equality of condition was our social goal. No it’s the most traditional of social goals for us; serve power, be told it’s for your own good. Propaganda 101; stoke desired emotional tone, repeat words of power. Developers! Developers! Developers! The message does not stick in the cortex if the limbic system isn’t primed.
PeterStuer 4y ago
Sadly the EU Commission has a huge history of revolving door compensation for its officials and there seems to be no inclination to change this. While it is different these days, an EU position itself used to be seen as a 'fin de carrière' (pre-retirement) financial bonus for national politicians, coasting out of public life while receiving an (in their eyes) earned sweet deal for years of laboring in the national political trenches.
- blibble 4y ago
  it is also seen as where you can send your awful politicians so that they can't do any damage (von der leyen being a prime example of a national government doing this)
checkurprivlege 4y ago
Then fire Von der Leyen, as she can't be scrutinized. One out of a number of reasons, which also include spectacular incompetence.
- logifail 4y ago
  > Then fire Von der Leyen, as she can't be scrutinized One could presumably fire her using the same mechanism by which she was elected[0]? Oh, wait... [0] https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-in-the-end-it-was-a-backroom-deal/a-49449976 https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-in-the-end-it-was-a-backroom-d...
  - toyg 4y ago
    Absolutely, if VdL lost the confidence of the European Council, i.e. the governments that nominated her, she'd be out on her ass. I agree that her nomination was a loss for Parliament in the constant, ongoing constitutional war of attrition between them and the Council. But that doesn't mean there is no way to force VdL from office if necessary.
    - blibble 4y ago
      > Absolutely, if VdL lost the confidence of the European Council, i.e. the governments that nominated her, she'd be out on her ass. there is no mechanism for the council to remove the commission president the parliament can, but only by dismissing the entire commission (making it politically very difficult) this also requires a 66.6% majority vs the 50%+1 that was needed to appoint, so it's all but impossible (by design, again)
      - toyg 4y ago
        A Commission President without the support of the Council would see all her proposals shot down immediately and all her commissioners resigning. It would be untenable and she would have to resign. There is the law and there is the spirit of the law. After all, for centuries, UK parliaments didn't even technically have to hold regular elections if they didn't feel like doing it.
drno123 4y ago
Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens, and she makes decisions that many governemts of smaller EU countries simply copy/implement. Even before deals with Pfizer there were many accusations of corruption, but I am not aware of any investigation. And I am not aware that many journalists are doing any research here. This is a huge problem.
- pif 4y ago
  - drno123 4y ago
    Nope. Live in Croatia and on referendum, I voted for my country to join EU.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    One can discuss, critique, and even whine about structural flaws in their society without necessarily wanting to tear it all down around them.
  - johnnymorgan 4y ago
    Let me guess: you had a brexiter strawman to throw out? EU is going to fail, it was never a good idea to begin with as it was dishonest from the start. Also European cultures are not unified in anyway from what I can tell, I seriously doubt the EU, as it stands today, will survive past 2030
    - baisq 4y ago
      >EU is going to fail, it was never a good idea to begin with as it was dishonest from the start. That's like saying that chemotherapy is not necessary because cancer is not a good idea to begin with. We need active action to end the EU. It's made of a clump of bureaucrats and oligarchs who are separated from the common rabble by several levels of people and who won't give up their seat ever.
  - hardlianotion 4y ago
meibo 4y ago
Von der Leyen's cabinet is a pile of corruption and criminals. It's insane how many people in high EU roles are only there because they failed in local politics, or got caught in some scandal. How do they say, "die EU nicht den Leyen überlassen".
- tankenmate 4y ago
  I'm assuming there are no convictions (and hence are they really criminals if they haven't been convicted?), but I'd like to see the allegations for each member of the cabinet.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >I'm assuming there are no convictions It's tough to get stuff to stick on teflon.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - varispeed 4y ago
    If there were convictions that would project a very bad image of the EU and the west. The myth that the large scale corruption does not generally happen in the west would go bust.
  - BellLabradors 4y ago
    There is a history of it in the institution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer_Commission
  - rasz 4y ago
    convictions ? ina country where being caught passing sensitive information about currently running investigation to actual NEO NAZIS being investigated gets you promoted?
  - meibo 4y ago
    In Germany, politicians are rarely convicted, they just end up resigning or being pushed to organizations or foundations like the EU. Von der Leyen has many scandals under her belt, including ones that involved important phone messages being lost. Who knows!
inglor_cz 4y ago
Maybe they should introduce Chat Control-like legislation on themselves and themselves only. Servants of the people need to be transparent, no?
- encrux 4y ago
  Officials are usually elected because the people trust them (yes von der Leyen indirectly elected, but that's besides the point here). In geopolitical decisions for example, the people can't and shouldn't be able to know everything.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    Trust is a process, not a static state. In order to trust someone you don't personally know, you usually need some level of transparency. Perhaps not total (as you mention, there is genuine need for some secrecy in politics), but surely much higher than the required level of transparency of random citizens.
  - account42 4y ago
    > In geopolitical decisions for example, the people can't and shouldn't be able to know everything. Why?
lizardactivist 4y ago
It appears she's using an iPhone -- just ask the U.S government to provide copies of those messages.
- fortuna86 4y ago
  You seem to have an agenda to prove that the US Government has the same access to US company data that, say China does. You are wrong. US Private industry denies requests for data and access all the time: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-to-unlock-pensacola-shooters-iphones.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-t... Whereas in China, there is no ask. It's illegal to deny government access to any private data, for any reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_Law_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_Law_of_the_Peopl... Textbook projection.
  - lnenad 4y ago
    - fortuna86 4y ago
      Implying the US gov has privileged access to iPhone data from Apple is wrong, and it's a projection of how companies like Huawei must operate.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        > must operate. Speaking of projection?
  - potatototoo99 4y ago
    The US is absolutely getting their hands on all text messages of EU leaders they can get away with with reasonable doubt... They'd be incompetent not to.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    Have you ever heard of PRISM? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM What is your XKEYSCORE identity? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore
deleted 4y ago
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Semaphor 4y ago
Mobile phone data that can’t be found? What does that remind me off? > From January 2019 to February 2020, a committee of inquiry investigated the legality of contracts awarded by von der Leyen to external consultants of the Bundeswehr. According to reports in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, cell phone data relevant to the investigation was deleted, files were improperly redacted and files were destroyed. Text messages were removed from both cell phones used by the then minister. For example, an IT officer from the ministry's CIT department performed a "security wipe" on one of the two cell phones, after which it was finally disposed of because von der Leyen's cell phone had been affected by a data leak (the so-called Advent calendar hack). Translated with Deepl from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen#Beschaffungsma%C3%9Fnahmen_der_Bundeswehr_und_%E2%80%9EBerater-Aff%C3%A4re%E2%80%9C https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen#Beschaffu... What a hilarious coincidence. Or Einzelfall ;)
- riedel 4y ago
  I do not think this is coincidence. Von der Leyen was practically kicked out German government because she was not able to control procurement for the German military. Now she repeated the stunt with the procurement of vaccines knowing she faced no consequence last time she simply let evidence of incompetence disappear. Her qualification is literally that she was born in Brussels into a Eurocrat's family.
  - quarantaseih 4y ago
- belter 4y ago
  I raise you a bigger coincidence...who does not believe in fairytales? Headline from 2020: "Orgenesis launches cell-based vaccine platform targeting SARS-CoV-2": https://www.manufacturingchemist.com/news/article_page/Orgenesis_launches_cell-based_vaccine_platform_targeting_SARS-CoV-2/165088 https://www.manufacturingchemist.com/news/article_page/Orgen... who becomes Orgenesis director in Dec 2020 you ask?: https://orgenesis.com/team https://orgenesis.com/team
traveler01 4y ago
Many in the society made money from Covid, now whoever believed their BS will suffer for it due to the economy recession coming in a few months.
- mrtesthah 4y ago
  It’s not like it killed a million people in the US or anything.
  - perryizgr8 4y ago
    Killed a million people vs killing billions due to 2nd and 3rd order economic repurcussions over the next couple of decades.
    - mrtesthah 4y ago
      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
      - perryizgr8 4y ago
        Do you need evidence for this? Any depression/recession will cause people living at the margins to starve. I'd think that's self evident.
        swatcoder 4y ago
        You sincerely believe that a recession of yet unclear magnitude will self—evidently “kill billions”, and that no comparable recession would have happened without the UN/western pandemic response? With such conviction that evidence is not even needed? I’d love your input on some horse races coming up soon.
        perryizgr8 4y ago
        > no comparable recession would have happened without the UN/western pandemic response I didn't say that. > Evidence Collecting and attributing evidence for this is quite tough. The costs are widely dispersed. Deaths will be attributed to "drug abuse", "suicide", "SIDS" all over the world. It won't be as clear cut as somebody dying of coronavirus. > You sincerely believe that a recession of yet unclear magnitude will self—evidently “kill billions” Yes I do. I think it is a logical conclusion to arrive at. Consider the fact that the price of a 4th of July barbecue for 10 people was $59.50 in 2021. That number now stands at $69.68, an increase of 17%. Note that this does not include things like housing which is a big part of a person's expenses. To me, this means inflation in the last year is at least 17%, likely significantly more, once you factor in other essential expenditures. A near 20% inflation rate is bound to kill people in the tens of millions (in USA alone). I am sure you would agree. Now, is that a consequence of the insane money printing that the government did in response to the pandemic? To me, it seems self-evident. Pump in huge amount of cash into the economy and people have more to spend without a corresponding increase in "real value". Consider that a similar story is playing out all over the world, in all major economies at a smaller or greater scale. Add up all the lives that will be cut short because of lack of medicines, lack of food, lack of infant care, lack of safe cars, over a period of years. I think the number is in billions.
varispeed 4y ago
In the UK if you are asked to reveal your passport, you can get 5 years for simply forgetting it (not exercised yet as I am aware). I think the case should be made so that if the messages are not found, the politician should be found guilty of losing messages and that should attract the same penalty as corruption. They would make themselves bloody sure they retain the messages.
- hardlianotion 4y ago
  I doubt that is an actual rule - many people don’t have passports and there is no requirement for someone to show on the spot identification.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    It's obviously a typo or failed autocorrect for password.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
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anonymousiam 4y ago
It's almost a certainty that these text messages exist somewhere, probably both in government surveillance databases and mobile carrier records. If the EU government really wanted to obtain/produce them, it could.
shrubble 4y ago
This is not the first time she has been in a corruption scandal, is that correct?
- Lionga 4y ago
  Yes she had many corruption scandals and has already deleted data from phones that were subject to investigation. Germans pushed away the most corrupt politicians to EU Parliment often
- lioeters 4y ago
  > Von der Leyen, who was Germany’s defence minister before moving to Brussels, was engulfed in a similar scandal shortly after leaving Berlin for Brussels in 2019. She denied having anything to hide after it emerged that one of her two mobile phones being sought by a German parliamentary committee had been wiped. > The committee had been investigating whether lucrative defence contracts were awarded to outside consultants without oversight and whether personal connections were behind those deals. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commission-guilty-of-maladministration-over-pfizer-texts-ursula-von-der-leyen-covid-vaccine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commi...
an9n 4y ago
I'm sure there's nothing dodgy happening here. Let's just trust the experts and not let trifling matters - such as Pfizer having not that long ago received the largest fine in history for a healthcare company - could our judgement. Take the vaccine! Trust the science™!
seydor 4y ago
I m sure some hacker has them
- frozencell 4y ago
  Nation-funded hackers?
spaetzleesser 4y ago
this would be a great opportunity for some people in their IT department to become whistleblowers. I bet there are quite a few people who know how to find the messages but have been told to not find them.
drno123 4y ago
Could we start a kickstarter campaign for a whistleblower to provide these messages to the public, maybe some IT guy working at a telecom?
taylorius 4y ago
So what's the criminal penalty for destruction of evidence? Hint - rhymes with "Fail".
- yrgulation 4y ago
  Oooh dont be silly. Politicians only go to prison in east europe, as there is no corruption at the eu level or in germany (where she also destroyed evidence yet was promoted to chief of the eu): https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-under-pressure-over-second-wiped-phone/ https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-under-pressure...
throwaway45631 4y ago
Says the EU: All the more reasons to have all traffic preemptively scanned and filtered (for thee) ;-)
jimmaswell 4y ago
Didn't they hem and haw in negotiation for months trying to save pennies per shot while people were dying and America was already rolling out?
DisjointedHunt 4y ago
pessimizer 4y ago
> "The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of 'short-lived and ephemeral' communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents." I set up a unlogged jabber chat server at an institution subject to FOIA because you can get people to fall for this. Why not declare email ephemeral and delete them every night?
ls15 4y ago
Pfizer has a copy, right?
orangepurple 4y ago
Flip the situation around with a thought experiment: How do I get a job within the EU Commission that will give me the opportunity to make millions for myself? Who do I need to "donate" to? Or do I need to become someone's obedient slave? How do I prove myself worthy? Once in, what do I need to do to make as much money as possible for myself with zero negative consequences?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  > How do I get a job within the EU Commission that will give me the opportunity to make millions for myself? Simple! Be born into the wealthy elite or have very close ties to them (entrenched old money families) giving you access to enough funds, connections in the party and media, to campaign, advertise, win elections, and brush off all accusations of corruption and cronyism that could stick to you, while lying your way to the top by telling the rabble everything they want to hear (affordable housing, healthcare and education, lower corruption and taxes, higher wages and pensions, etc.) and once you're at the top, do none of those things and instead scratch the backs of those who helped you get there by giving them various tax breaks, lucrative government contracts, bail out their industries/companies, etc., and blaming external factors for making things worse for those who voted for you (Covid, Putin, China, immigrants, scalpers, terrorists, the boogieman, etc.).
Sakos 4y ago
> The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of "short-lived and ephemeral" communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents. What. WHAT. How in the actual fuck is that a real argument they made? What the fuck.
de6u99er 4y ago
EU parlamentarian Semsrott indicating that EU comission president Van der Leyen has a conflict of interest. https://youtu.be/9ghyGco-ok0 https://youtu.be/9ghyGco-ok0

282 points by Markoff 4y ago

The amount of corruption in the UE is insanely huge. This has been going on for the past 20 years. I left and I am not coming back. When I used to live in France, I paid between 70% and 75% taxes as a middle class employee. And you keep wondering, where does all the money go? - Statistics do not look good ? Forbid the statistics - Champion's league final, French/British/Spanish families have been threatened, attacked, stolen by hordes. Let's pretend it was because of the British fans, because a diplomatic crisis with them is a lot easier than weeks of chaos with the people living in Saint-Denis. The economy looks bad, the idea of having one currency to accommodate countries with vastly different needs is a stupid idea. Every time a country does not follow order, it gets threatened until it does. Oh, and of course, the last time we ask the French (for example) in 2005, whether they agreed about the EU Constitution they voted "NO". But somehow, someone decided that it must have been "YES".

collyw 4y ago

Corruption. Plain and simple.

Markoff 4y ago

The European Commission has been unable to find the text messages exchanged between president Ursula von der Leyen and the boss of giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the EU executive said in a letter to the EU ombudsman published on Wednesday (29 June). Last year, the New York Times first revealed that von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had been exchanging texts and calls for months to seal a deal for 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. The messages were then requested by journalist Alexander Fanta of news site netzpolitik.org, and a regular EUobserver writer, given the importance of the deal. But the commission's refusal to grant access to these communications prompted the EU ombudsman Emily O'Reilly to criticise how the commission handled this freedom of information request. Earlier this year, O'Reilly found that the commission staff had never explicitly asked the president's office to look for the text messages — calling on the EU executive to do a more exhaustive search. The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of "short-lived and ephemeral" communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents. "The commission can confirm that the search undertaken by the President's cabinet for relevant text messages corresponding to the request for access to documents has not yielded any results," the EU transparency commissioner Vera Jourova said in the letter to the ombudsman. The commission's response has been slammed by the ombudsman's office as "problematic" — with a full analysis expected to be published in the coming weeks. In its response, the commission also says that it is considering recommending its staff not use messaging apps in a business context — which would, as a result, eliminate the need to keep a record of such instant communications. Nevertheless, the lack of transparency surrounding these texts has triggered outrage among MEPs and civil society organisations — who criticised the commission for using tricks to avoid accountability. Belgian socialist MEP Kathleen Van Brempt, who chairs the parliament's special committee on Covid-19, deemed the commission response as "unacceptable". "The complete lack of transparency benefits the industry, not the European citizens," she tweeted. The campaign SumOfUs has collected nearly 130,000 signatures in the EU to ask von der Leyen to publish the text messages. Meanwhile, MEPs have been calling on the commission to reveal information on vaccine prices, since only a small group of lawmakers had access to heavily-redacted versions of the contracts.

andrewclunn 4y ago

Did they look in the same place that the evidence from Epstein's island is stored? Plausible deniability + "expert opinion" serving as the null hypothesis = institutional control of Occam's razor. I for one don't think there's anything about collusion or corruption here unless proof is presented... and since proof can't be found: nothing to see here, move along. I'm sure our government agencies and these multinational corporations have our best interests at heart.

calibas 4y ago
"We destroyed all the evidence that would prove our innocence, so you'll just have to trust us when we say we did nothing wrong."

_fizz_buzz_ 4y ago

This has a bit of a but-her-emails vibe to it. In an ideal world more official channels should have been used, but this was the height of the pandemic. If Von der Leyen had done nothing, it would be a way bigger scandal. I am glad the vaccine doses were secured by the european commission.

redeeman 4y ago
thats all well and good, assuming we use the same forgiving logic when you or I do something against the rules. But we dont. It seems that some are slightly more equal to the law than others
- chki 4y ago
  Actually where I live (EU) the law is pretty forgiving – at least in my opinion.
  - pfortuny 4y ago
    Not so,fast. Look at fiscal law and its enforcement first and then tell me. I live there, too.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - redeeman 4y ago
    I live in the EU aswell, and in my country, the burden of proof for tax cases is reversed. The tax department can just invent their version of reality, and if I cannot disprove it, it sticks.
qsdf38100 4y ago
Yeah it’s sad to see EU bashing at this level on HN. Putin would love this. "EU is corrupt and rotten, save democracy and leave EU! Oh and leave NATO while you’re at it."

tlear 4y ago

Let's create a massive self regulating bureaucratic monster, then be surprised when it engages in corruption and coverup.

tchalla 4y ago
Can you explain the corruption here?
- pfortuny 4y ago
  Just a link I found: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commission-guilty-of-maladministration-over-pfizer-texts-ursula-von-der-leyen-covid-vaccine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commi...
revertmean 4y ago
The EU bureaucracy has around 33,000 civil servants, so it's not particularly massive. Compare with the UK government, which has around 475,000 civil servants. In fact, there are English local councils that have bigger bureaucracies. And, of course, the EU has a bigger population than the USA. Why don't you check out how many Federal government bureaucrats there are, just for fun? This idea that the EU is a massive bureaucratic entity is seriously, factually wrong.
- blibble 4y ago
  > This idea that the EU is a massive bureaucratic entity are seriously, factually wrong. that's because the EU uses national agencies to implement its policies it is purely the super-high level management e.g. the employees implementing EU farming/farming policy are employed by the member states goverments, aren't classed as EU employees and aren't paid by the EU budget, despite nearly 100% of their work coming directly from the EU so of course it looks super-efficient, because national governments are paying to implement what it decides this is in contrast to the US federal government, or your UK government/local government examples, which have to employ people to do the groundwork if the spending was correctly attributed the EU budget would be orders of magnitude bigger, as would its number of civil servants

colpabar 4y ago

Haha, whoopsie! I love funny little mistakes between governmental leaders and billion dollar corporations like this. Good thing this isn’t regular citizens using an encrypted messaging app, because then we’d have a real problem.

deleted 4y ago
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tokinonagare 4y ago
Yep, crazy how transparent and democratic the whole affair and the EU is. I'm glad the EU and its subject governments are reminding me daily how they protect democratic values, how corrupted Russia (and sometimes China) is with all its oligarchs, and how they're protecting and extending my rights.
- lnsru 4y ago
  The good think is that EU is not holding you back from experiencing perfect democracy in Russia or China. Maybe you can become a poster boy/girl as a political refugee from rotten West there.
  - orestarod 4y ago
    I don't know if that's what you imply, but the correct mindset for every problem is not "Be happy it's not worse", it's "Why the f*ck is it not better and how will we make it so?".
  - yeaso9 4y ago
    The point is humans are humans. The rest of philosophical gibberish. If you want to enjoy life in the US, better be good at tech. Cost of living and minimum wage create a de facto communist quota system, and until Papa Musk is happy with units shipped, we’re going to hear about it! Society could apply industrialism to biological health and resiliency and a lot of free time to explore existence, but that won’t help vain angry men earn military prestige, or vain socialites earn social status if equality of condition was our social goal. No it’s the most traditional of social goals for us; serve power, be told it’s for your own good. Propaganda 101; stoke desired emotional tone, repeat words of power. Developers! Developers! Developers! The message does not stick in the cortex if the limbic system isn’t primed.

PeterStuer 4y ago

Sadly the EU Commission has a huge history of revolving door compensation for its officials and there seems to be no inclination to change this. While it is different these days, an EU position itself used to be seen as a 'fin de carrière' (pre-retirement) financial bonus for national politicians, coasting out of public life while receiving an (in their eyes) earned sweet deal for years of laboring in the national political trenches.

blibble 4y ago
it is also seen as where you can send your awful politicians so that they can't do any damage (von der leyen being a prime example of a national government doing this)

checkurprivlege 4y ago

Then fire Von der Leyen, as she can't be scrutinized. One out of a number of reasons, which also include spectacular incompetence.

logifail 4y ago
> Then fire Von der Leyen, as she can't be scrutinized One could presumably fire her using the same mechanism by which she was elected[0]? Oh, wait... [0] https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-in-the-end-it-was-a-backroom-deal/a-49449976 https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-in-the-end-it-was-a-backroom-d...
- toyg 4y ago
  Absolutely, if VdL lost the confidence of the European Council, i.e. the governments that nominated her, she'd be out on her ass. I agree that her nomination was a loss for Parliament in the constant, ongoing constitutional war of attrition between them and the Council. But that doesn't mean there is no way to force VdL from office if necessary.
  - blibble 4y ago
    > Absolutely, if VdL lost the confidence of the European Council, i.e. the governments that nominated her, she'd be out on her ass. there is no mechanism for the council to remove the commission president the parliament can, but only by dismissing the entire commission (making it politically very difficult) this also requires a 66.6% majority vs the 50%+1 that was needed to appoint, so it's all but impossible (by design, again)
    - toyg 4y ago
      A Commission President without the support of the Council would see all her proposals shot down immediately and all her commissioners resigning. It would be untenable and she would have to resign. There is the law and there is the spirit of the law. After all, for centuries, UK parliaments didn't even technically have to hold regular elections if they didn't feel like doing it.

drno123 4y ago

Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens, and she makes decisions that many governemts of smaller EU countries simply copy/implement. Even before deals with Pfizer there were many accusations of corruption, but I am not aware of any investigation. And I am not aware that many journalists are doing any research here. This is a huge problem.

pif 4y ago
- drno123 4y ago
  Nope. Live in Croatia and on referendum, I voted for my country to join EU.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  One can discuss, critique, and even whine about structural flaws in their society without necessarily wanting to tear it all down around them.
- johnnymorgan 4y ago
  Let me guess: you had a brexiter strawman to throw out? EU is going to fail, it was never a good idea to begin with as it was dishonest from the start. Also European cultures are not unified in anyway from what I can tell, I seriously doubt the EU, as it stands today, will survive past 2030
  - baisq 4y ago
    >EU is going to fail, it was never a good idea to begin with as it was dishonest from the start. That's like saying that chemotherapy is not necessary because cancer is not a good idea to begin with. We need active action to end the EU. It's made of a clump of bureaucrats and oligarchs who are separated from the common rabble by several levels of people and who won't give up their seat ever.
- hardlianotion 4y ago

meibo 4y ago

Von der Leyen's cabinet is a pile of corruption and criminals. It's insane how many people in high EU roles are only there because they failed in local politics, or got caught in some scandal. How do they say, "die EU nicht den Leyen überlassen".

tankenmate 4y ago
I'm assuming there are no convictions (and hence are they really criminals if they haven't been convicted?), but I'd like to see the allegations for each member of the cabinet.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >I'm assuming there are no convictions It's tough to get stuff to stick on teflon.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- varispeed 4y ago
  If there were convictions that would project a very bad image of the EU and the west. The myth that the large scale corruption does not generally happen in the west would go bust.
- BellLabradors 4y ago
  There is a history of it in the institution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer_Commission
- rasz 4y ago
  convictions ? ina country where being caught passing sensitive information about currently running investigation to actual NEO NAZIS being investigated gets you promoted?
- meibo 4y ago
  In Germany, politicians are rarely convicted, they just end up resigning or being pushed to organizations or foundations like the EU. Von der Leyen has many scandals under her belt, including ones that involved important phone messages being lost. Who knows!

inglor_cz 4y ago

Maybe they should introduce Chat Control-like legislation on themselves and themselves only. Servants of the people need to be transparent, no?

encrux 4y ago
Officials are usually elected because the people trust them (yes von der Leyen indirectly elected, but that's besides the point here). In geopolitical decisions for example, the people can't and shouldn't be able to know everything.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  Trust is a process, not a static state. In order to trust someone you don't personally know, you usually need some level of transparency. Perhaps not total (as you mention, there is genuine need for some secrecy in politics), but surely much higher than the required level of transparency of random citizens.
- account42 4y ago
  > In geopolitical decisions for example, the people can't and shouldn't be able to know everything. Why?

lizardactivist 4y ago

It appears she's using an iPhone -- just ask the U.S government to provide copies of those messages.

fortuna86 4y ago
You seem to have an agenda to prove that the US Government has the same access to US company data that, say China does. You are wrong. US Private industry denies requests for data and access all the time: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-to-unlock-pensacola-shooters-iphones.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-t... Whereas in China, there is no ask. It's illegal to deny government access to any private data, for any reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_Law_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_Law_of_the_Peopl... Textbook projection.
- lnenad 4y ago
  - fortuna86 4y ago
    Implying the US gov has privileged access to iPhone data from Apple is wrong, and it's a projection of how companies like Huawei must operate.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      > must operate. Speaking of projection?
- potatototoo99 4y ago
  The US is absolutely getting their hands on all text messages of EU leaders they can get away with with reasonable doubt... They'd be incompetent not to.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  Have you ever heard of PRISM? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM What is your XKEYSCORE identity? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore

deleted 4y ago

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Semaphor 4y ago

Mobile phone data that can’t be found? What does that remind me off? > From January 2019 to February 2020, a committee of inquiry investigated the legality of contracts awarded by von der Leyen to external consultants of the Bundeswehr. According to reports in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, cell phone data relevant to the investigation was deleted, files were improperly redacted and files were destroyed. Text messages were removed from both cell phones used by the then minister. For example, an IT officer from the ministry's CIT department performed a "security wipe" on one of the two cell phones, after which it was finally disposed of because von der Leyen's cell phone had been affected by a data leak (the so-called Advent calendar hack). Translated with Deepl from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen#Beschaffungsma%C3%9Fnahmen_der_Bundeswehr_und_%E2%80%9EBerater-Aff%C3%A4re%E2%80%9C https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen#Beschaffu... What a hilarious coincidence. Or Einzelfall ;)

riedel 4y ago
I do not think this is coincidence. Von der Leyen was practically kicked out German government because she was not able to control procurement for the German military. Now she repeated the stunt with the procurement of vaccines knowing she faced no consequence last time she simply let evidence of incompetence disappear. Her qualification is literally that she was born in Brussels into a Eurocrat's family.
- quarantaseih 4y ago
belter 4y ago
I raise you a bigger coincidence...who does not believe in fairytales? Headline from 2020: "Orgenesis launches cell-based vaccine platform targeting SARS-CoV-2": https://www.manufacturingchemist.com/news/article_page/Orgenesis_launches_cell-based_vaccine_platform_targeting_SARS-CoV-2/165088 https://www.manufacturingchemist.com/news/article_page/Orgen... who becomes Orgenesis director in Dec 2020 you ask?: https://orgenesis.com/team https://orgenesis.com/team

traveler01 4y ago

Many in the society made money from Covid, now whoever believed their BS will suffer for it due to the economy recession coming in a few months.

mrtesthah 4y ago
It’s not like it killed a million people in the US or anything.
- perryizgr8 4y ago
  Killed a million people vs killing billions due to 2nd and 3rd order economic repurcussions over the next couple of decades.
  - mrtesthah 4y ago
    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
    - perryizgr8 4y ago
      Do you need evidence for this? Any depression/recession will cause people living at the margins to starve. I'd think that's self evident.
      - swatcoder 4y ago
        You sincerely believe that a recession of yet unclear magnitude will self—evidently “kill billions”, and that no comparable recession would have happened without the UN/western pandemic response? With such conviction that evidence is not even needed? I’d love your input on some horse races coming up soon.
        perryizgr8 4y ago
        > no comparable recession would have happened without the UN/western pandemic response I didn't say that. > Evidence Collecting and attributing evidence for this is quite tough. The costs are widely dispersed. Deaths will be attributed to "drug abuse", "suicide", "SIDS" all over the world. It won't be as clear cut as somebody dying of coronavirus. > You sincerely believe that a recession of yet unclear magnitude will self—evidently “kill billions” Yes I do. I think it is a logical conclusion to arrive at. Consider the fact that the price of a 4th of July barbecue for 10 people was $59.50 in 2021. That number now stands at $69.68, an increase of 17%. Note that this does not include things like housing which is a big part of a person's expenses. To me, this means inflation in the last year is at least 17%, likely significantly more, once you factor in other essential expenditures. A near 20% inflation rate is bound to kill people in the tens of millions (in USA alone). I am sure you would agree. Now, is that a consequence of the insane money printing that the government did in response to the pandemic? To me, it seems self-evident. Pump in huge amount of cash into the economy and people have more to spend without a corresponding increase in "real value". Consider that a similar story is playing out all over the world, in all major economies at a smaller or greater scale. Add up all the lives that will be cut short because of lack of medicines, lack of food, lack of infant care, lack of safe cars, over a period of years. I think the number is in billions.

varispeed 4y ago

In the UK if you are asked to reveal your passport, you can get 5 years for simply forgetting it (not exercised yet as I am aware). I think the case should be made so that if the messages are not found, the politician should be found guilty of losing messages and that should attract the same penalty as corruption. They would make themselves bloody sure they retain the messages.

hardlianotion 4y ago
I doubt that is an actual rule - many people don’t have passports and there is no requirement for someone to show on the spot identification.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  It's obviously a typo or failed autocorrect for password.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
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anonymousiam 4y ago

It's almost a certainty that these text messages exist somewhere, probably both in government surveillance databases and mobile carrier records. If the EU government really wanted to obtain/produce them, it could.

shrubble 4y ago

This is not the first time she has been in a corruption scandal, is that correct?

Lionga 4y ago
Yes she had many corruption scandals and has already deleted data from phones that were subject to investigation. Germans pushed away the most corrupt politicians to EU Parliment often
lioeters 4y ago
> Von der Leyen, who was Germany’s defence minister before moving to Brussels, was engulfed in a similar scandal shortly after leaving Berlin for Brussels in 2019. She denied having anything to hide after it emerged that one of her two mobile phones being sought by a German parliamentary committee had been wiped. > The committee had been investigating whether lucrative defence contracts were awarded to outside consultants without oversight and whether personal connections were behind those deals. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commission-guilty-of-maladministration-over-pfizer-texts-ursula-von-der-leyen-covid-vaccine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commi...

an9n 4y ago

I'm sure there's nothing dodgy happening here. Let's just trust the experts and not let trifling matters - such as Pfizer having not that long ago received the largest fine in history for a healthcare company - could our judgement. Take the vaccine! Trust the science™!

seydor 4y ago

I m sure some hacker has them

frozencell 4y ago
Nation-funded hackers?

spaetzleesser 4y ago

this would be a great opportunity for some people in their IT department to become whistleblowers. I bet there are quite a few people who know how to find the messages but have been told to not find them.

drno123 4y ago

Could we start a kickstarter campaign for a whistleblower to provide these messages to the public, maybe some IT guy working at a telecom?

taylorius 4y ago

So what's the criminal penalty for destruction of evidence? Hint - rhymes with "Fail".

yrgulation 4y ago
Oooh dont be silly. Politicians only go to prison in east europe, as there is no corruption at the eu level or in germany (where she also destroyed evidence yet was promoted to chief of the eu): https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-under-pressure-over-second-wiped-phone/ https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-under-pressure...

throwaway45631 4y ago

Says the EU: All the more reasons to have all traffic preemptively scanned and filtered (for thee) ;-)

jimmaswell 4y ago

Didn't they hem and haw in negotiation for months trying to save pennies per shot while people were dying and America was already rolling out?

DisjointedHunt 4y ago

pessimizer 4y ago

> "The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of 'short-lived and ephemeral' communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents." I set up a unlogged jabber chat server at an institution subject to FOIA because you can get people to fall for this. Why not declare email ephemeral and delete them every night?

ls15 4y ago

Pfizer has a copy, right?

orangepurple 4y ago

Flip the situation around with a thought experiment: How do I get a job within the EU Commission that will give me the opportunity to make millions for myself? Who do I need to "donate" to? Or do I need to become someone's obedient slave? How do I prove myself worthy? Once in, what do I need to do to make as much money as possible for myself with zero negative consequences?

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
> How do I get a job within the EU Commission that will give me the opportunity to make millions for myself? Simple! Be born into the wealthy elite or have very close ties to them (entrenched old money families) giving you access to enough funds, connections in the party and media, to campaign, advertise, win elections, and brush off all accusations of corruption and cronyism that could stick to you, while lying your way to the top by telling the rabble everything they want to hear (affordable housing, healthcare and education, lower corruption and taxes, higher wages and pensions, etc.) and once you're at the top, do none of those things and instead scratch the backs of those who helped you get there by giving them various tax breaks, lucrative government contracts, bail out their industries/companies, etc., and blaming external factors for making things worse for those who voted for you (Covid, Putin, China, immigrants, scalpers, terrorists, the boogieman, etc.).

Sakos 4y ago

> The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages, but it previously argued that this type of "short-lived and ephemeral" communications do not fall under the scope of EU transparency rules on access to documents. What. WHAT. How in the actual fuck is that a real argument they made? What the fuck.

de6u99er 4y ago

EU parlamentarian Semsrott indicating that EU comission president Van der Leyen has a conflict of interest. https://youtu.be/9ghyGco-ok0 https://youtu.be/9ghyGco-ok0