Ursula von der Leyen: Beyond Redemption

Being wrongly blamed once may be considered unlucky but being blamed four times seems reckless. (With apologies to Oscar Wilde)

If there is one person, more than anyone else, who shows the absurdity of the European Commission then it is certainly the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (hereafter, VDL).

Questions about VDL’s lack of creativity first surfaced in 2015 when he was accused of plagiarizing his doctorate. She was eventually cleared of her charges but as the BBC reported on 9 March 2016, the president of Hannover Medical School, Christopher Baum, admitted that “Ms von der Leyen’s thesis contained plagiarized material”, but added that “it was not there with intent to deceive”. Her first lucky escape .

VDL’s lack of integrity continued when he served as Germany’s Minister of Defense between 2013 and 2019. During his tenure as minister, he was embroiled in a scandal over the payment of 250 million euros to experts related to arms contracts. Germany’s Federal Audit Office found that, of the 250 million euros announced in consultation money, only 5.1 million euros were spent. In addition, one of the consultants was McKinsey & Company, where VDL’s son was a partner, thus triggering a possible conflict of interest. It also emerged that messages related to contracts were deleted from two VDL mobile phones. Although he was eventually cleared of corruption charges, questions about his case have not come to light even today.

After surviving two scandals, the VDL could not believe its luck when in July 2019 Macron, and Merkel, crossed the street. Spitzenkadidaten and appointed him to replace Jean-Claude Junker as head of the European Commission. I Spitzenkadidaten the process, where the leader comes from and is approved by the European Parliament, is in itself different. In the case of the VDL, he was lucky that the EU could not agree on one of the two leaders at the time, Martin Weber and Frans Timmermans. So it was left to the perfect fixer, Macron, and the VDL advisor, Merkel, to reach an agreement using that great democratic and transparent tool called the ‘backroom deal’. VDL’s nomination was accepted by the European Council and on 16 July the European Parliament voted to accept his nomination. But it was a close vote. Out of 747 MEPs, only 383 voted for him, 327 voted for him, 22 chose, and one vote was invalid. Under EU rules, the president of the Commission must be elected by more than 50% of MEP votes. Thus, he got only 9 votes above the threshold. Compare this to his predecessor, Juncker, who received 422 votes in 2014.

After being appointed president of the European Commission, VDL was again involved in a controversy, this time involving the purchase of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer. The scandal, which the media called Pfizergate, is related to the purchase of 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine for use throughout the EU. It turned out that: a) the number of doses was much larger than what was needed, which led to a significant amount being destroyed or donated; b) excess doses cost the EU € 4 billion; c) the total value of the contract, which Politico reported to be around €20 billion, was increased; and d) cost-prohibitive, the vaccine deal was negotiated directly between VDL and Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer. The negotiations were conducted using sms messages, which VDL later claimed to have deleted.

The New York Times, which began an investigation into Pfizergate, filed a lawsuit against the European Commission for failing to provide access to text messages between VDL and Bourla. In Belgium, the lobbyist, Frederic Baldan, filed a criminal complaint alleging corruption and destruction of documents. The Belgian case was eventually taken over by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which opened a criminal investigation. The outcome of these legal actions/investigations is pending.

One would think that the no-nonsense VDL would learn a lesson from all these transgressions but it seems that nothing will stand in the way of Ursula and a good scandal. Which brings us to his latest injustice, cronyism. In January of this year, the VDL appointed its CDU political colleague, Martin Pieper, to the newly created high-stakes position of special envoy for SMEs. The appointment was reported by La Matinale Europeenne in February but it was not until April that the controversy surrounding the appointment was widely reported in the English press.

The appointment was controversial for two reasons: 1) the recruitment process was flawed and 2) Pieper’s selection was considered politically motivated. In the first issue, an anonymous EU official revealed that there were two other candidates, one from Sweden and one from the Czech Republic, who scored better than Pieper in the recruitment process.

In the second case, there were strong suspicions that Pieper had been chosen by the VDL to favor the CDU and thus win its support for his re-election as head of the European Commission. The appointment provoked a strong response from some members of the Commission and MEPs. Four senior Commissioners, including Joseph Borrell and the Internal Market Commissioner, Thiery Breton, wrote to the VDL on 27 March expressing their concern about the lack of transparency and impartiality in the appointment. On 11 April, MEPs voted by 382 to 144 to revoke Pieper’s appointment. Although the vote was not binding on the Commission, Pieper’s position did not hold and on 16 April he resigned. In the words of Daniel Freund, German/Greens MEP, reported by Euronews, “it was sad and shameful”. He continued: “I don’t know how we can explain to the voters”.

At the time of writing, Euronews reported that a deal had been closed for him to be re-elected. It is not clear when the European Parliament will vote on him first, but it is likely to be later this week. The exact date is a minor matter. What is not insignificant is that the re-election of the VDL for another 5 years, despite all the inadequacies mentioned above, will confirm what many have been saying for a long time, that the EU needs a major reform. EU citizens need to see that EU institutions are more transparent, accountable and democratic.