Woltron thinks outside the box

EU President von der Leyen in the eye of the law

Has EU President Ursula von der Leyen fallen victim to her own craving for fame?(Bild: EPA)

The European Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into Ursula von der Leyen's vaccine deals. The voters' verdict looms in the EU elections in June. The bill for a balance sheet of failures.

The EU elections in June will be the verdict of 359 million Europeans on five years of activity by the authorities in Brussels. The balance sheet (see below) is blood red. If I were Mrs. von der Leyen or Otmar Karas, the first of countless deputies to the President of the European Parliament, my knees would shake and my guts would gurgle close to failure. Against the backdrop of the immense sense of mission that fills their self-righteous souls, however, this assessment is incorrect: thousands of kilometers away from the citizens, these gentlemen wallow in a feeling of unassailability. A recent example seems to represent just the tip of the Brussels iceberg.

"The biggest corruption scandal in history" - this was the headline of the German magazine "Cicero" on May 16, 2023. Did anyone suspect the ten billion euro Benko scandal? Not at all: An unprecedented happening in the course of the EU's vaccine procurement - with a much larger scope (35 billion euros) - was described. This leads to investigations into the machinations between Council President Ursula von der Leyen and the head of the US company Pfizer, Albertos Bourla. The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) recently took up the matter. What's behind it all?