Nick Corbishley has often criticised Ursula von der Leyen for her corruption and her willingness to push through predictably bad neoliberal/neocon policies. But her reappointment Queen of Europe Her appointment as European Commission president will provide another opportunity to review her disappointing record. One indicator of her incompetence is how she managed to make her predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, look good.
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George Georgiou is an economist who served in a variety of senior roles at the Central Bank of Cyprus for many years, including Chief of Staff to the Governor during the financial crisis.
Being accused of wrongdoing once may be seen as a misfortune, but being accused four times seems like carelessness. (Apologies to Oscar Wilde)
If there is one person who more than anyone personifies the incompetence of the European Commission, it is undoubtedly its President, Ursula von der Leyen (hereafter referred to as VDL).
Questions about VDL’s lack of integrity first emerged in 2015, when she was accused of plagiarizing her doctoral thesis. She was eventually exonerated, but as the BBC reported on March 9, 2016, Christopher Baum, president of the Hannover Medical School, admitted that “von der Leyen’s thesis did indeed contain plagiarism,” but added that “there was no intention to deceive.” This was her first lucky escape.
VDL’s dishonesty continued during her time as German Minister of Defense from 2013 to 2019. During her time at the Ministry of Defense, she was embroiled in a scandal over €250 million in payments to consultants related to arms contracts. The German Federal Court of Audit found that of the €250 million declared as consultancy fees, only €5.1 million was actually spent. Furthermore, one of the consultants was McKinsey & Company, and VDL’s son worked there as an associate, creating a possible conflict of interest. It was also revealed that messages related to the contracts had been deleted from two of VDL’s mobile phones. Although she eventually cleared herself of corruption allegations, questions about her integrity during that period remain to this day.
Having survived two scandals, VDL was re-elected in July 2019 by Macron together with Merkel. Arena He appointed her as President of the European Commission to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker. Arena The process itself, where a top candidate emerges and is approved by the European Parliament, is somewhat arcane. VDL was lucky that the EU could not agree on either of the two top candidates at the time, Martin Weber and Frans Timmermans. So it was up to Macron, the perfect fixer, and Merkel, VDL’s mentor, to reach an agreement using a wonderfully democratic and transparent tool called a “closed door deal”. VDL’s nomination was approved by the European Council, and on July 16, the European Parliament voted to approve her appointment. But it was a close call. Of a total of 747 MEPs, only 383 voted for her, 327 against, 22 abstained and 1 invalid vote. Under EU rules, the president of the European Commission must be elected by at least 50% of the votes of MEPs. Thus, she received only 9 votes more than the threshold. Compare this to her predecessor, Juncker, who received 422 votes in 2014.
After being appointed President of the European Commission, the VDL was again embroiled in controversy, this time over the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer. The scandal, which the media named Pfizergate, was related to the purchase of 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine for use across the EU. It turned out that a) the number of doses received was far more than was needed and therefore a significant number were discarded or donated, b) the surplus doses cost the EU 4 billion euros, c) the total contract value, reported by Politico at around 20 billion euros, was inflated, and d) the most damaging charge was that the vaccine contract was negotiated directly between the VDL and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. The negotiations were carried out using SMS messages, which the VDL later claimed to have deleted.
The New York Times, which first investigated Pfizergate, sued the European Commission for not providing access to SMS conversations between VDL and Bourla. In Belgium, lobbyist Frédéric Baldin filed criminal charges for corruption and destruction of documents. The Belgian case was eventually handed over to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which opened a criminal investigation. The outcome of these legal proceedings/investigations is still pending.
One would think that the thoughtless VDL would have learned its lesson from these transgressions, but nothing seems to stand in the way of Ursula and a good scandal. Which brings us to her latest wrongdoing: nepotism. In January this year, the VDL appointed fellow CDU politician Martin Pieper to the newly created, highly paid position of special envoy for small and medium-sized enterprises. The appointment was reported in February by La Matinale Europeenne, but it wasn’t until April that the controversy surrounding the appointment was widely reported in the English-language media.
The appointment was controversial for two reasons: 1) the recruitment process was flawed, and 2) Pieper’s selection was seen as politically motivated. Regarding the first issue, an anonymous EU official revealed that there were two other candidates, one from Sweden and one from the Czech Republic, who performed better than Pieper in the recruitment process.
Regarding the second issue, there was a strong suspicion that the VDL chose Piper to ingratiate itself with the CDU and to gain the party’s support to be reappointed as European Commission President. The appointment caused a strong backlash from both other Commission members and MEPs. Four senior Commissioners, including Joseph Borrell and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, wrote to the VDL on March 27, expressing their concerns about the lack of transparency and impartiality of the appointment. On April 11, MEPs voted 382-144 to revoke Piper’s appointment. Although the vote was not binding on the Commission, Piper’s position became untenable and he resigned on April 16. Daniel Freund, MEP from the German Greens, quoted by Euronews, said this was “sad and shameful”. He added: “I don’t know how to explain this to my constituents.”
At the time of writing, Euronews reports that an agreement has been reached for her reappointment. It is not clear when the European Parliament will formally vote for her, but it will likely be later this week. The exact date is a minor issue. What is not trivial is that if VDL is reappointed for another five years, despite all the injustices mentioned above, it would confirm what many have been arguing for some time: that the EU needs fundamental reforms. EU citizens need to see that EU institutions are much more transparent, accountable and democratic.
