Hungary: European Commission's Pfizer Deal Laced with Corruption

The vaccine manufacturer filed a lawsuit against the Hungarian government.

Puurs, 2021. április 23. Ursula von der Leyen, az Európai Bizottság elnöke (b2) látogatást tesz a Pfizer multinacionális gyógyszergyár puursi üzemében 2021. április 23-án. MTI/EPA/AFP/John Thys Fotó: John Thys

"The European Commission's procurement of the Pfizer vaccine has been surrounded by suspicions of corruption. It is obvious that these shots were ordered and forced on member states in unnecessarily large quantities," the Hungarian Government Information Center said in response to a request from Magyar Nemzet, after it emerged that Pfizer and BioNTech had filed a lawsuit against the Hungarian government back in January this year over the purchase price of some of the Covid-19 vaccines.

According to documents obtained by Politico, the plaintiffs are demanding the payment of three million BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines costing approximately sixty million euros.

As we reported earlier,after preliminary talks in March 2021 with the head of Pfizer on the procurement of a coronavirus vaccine, Ursula von der Leyen, virtually agreed the details by text message with the pharmaceutical giant's CEO Albert Bourla. An investigation into the deal, worth around €35 billion, was launched in January 2022, but the European Commission president's team failed to find the text messages in question.

The EU ombudsman concluded that Ursula von der Leyen had deliberately obstructed her work by claiming not to have found any text message between the Commission president and Bourla. It later emerged that allegedly only internal document registers and not text messages were reviewed, saying they were too short-lived and therefore do not fall under EU law on the retention of policy documents.

Vera Jourova, the anti-Hungarian EU commissioner who was previously also suspected of corruption, defended Ursula von der Leyen reiterating the short-lifed, transitory nature of text messages.

However, European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly upheld the view that the conduct of the Commission members failed to comply with the transparency required by EU rules, and no comprehensive inquiry into the case had been carried out.

The European Commission president defended herself by saying that she was not involved in the negotiations, therefore the messages did not affect the course of the deal. It is no coincidence that Ursula von der Leyen tried to downplay the importance of the exchanged text messages, as the EU incurred financial losses as a result of the procurement of Pfizer vaccines. Under the mega-deal with the American Pfizer and the German BioNTech, Brussels agreed to purchase 900 million doses worth $35 billion between the end of 2020 and 2023, with an option for another 900 million doses.

Cover photo: Ursula von der Leyen visits Pfizer plant in Puurs (Photo: MTI/EPA/AFP/John Thys)