Berliner Zeitung on 'Pfizergate': Off the Reservation and Total Incompetence Proudly on Display
Just now™ it dawns on some legacy media journos™ that not all is well in EU-istan, which, of course, comes across in the usual uninformed and misinforming manner
Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine.
Von der Leyen and ‘Pfizergate’: What Happened With Vaccinations is Now Happening With Weapons
Secret deals, redacted contracts, lack of oversight: the text message scandal surrounding Ursula von der Leyen is not an isolated case as it sheds a harsh light on EU policy.
Op-ed by Raphael Schmeller, Berliner Zeitung, 14 May 2025 [source; archived]
It took three years for an EU court to realise the obvious: the text messages that Ursula von der Leyen exchanged with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla about the biggest vaccine deal in EU history are relevant and the public has a right to see them.
Since the coronavirus crisis, the head of the EU Commission has had to put up with accusations that she bought too much and too expensive vaccine from the US company Pfizer and concealed text messages [that argument™ only works if you disregard essentially the same behaviour in regards to VdL’s previous job as German defence minister: she’d been in the running to succeed Merkel but since she was both too incompetent (doesn’t signify a disqualification) and too transparently corrupt (bad looks) for Germany (let that sink in for a moment), she’s been ‘outsourced’ to Brussels]. Von der Leyen always emphasised that the text messages were not official documents and that they were not about contracts [see, no problemo]. The Commission had also stated that von der Leyen's text messages had since been ‘deleted’—a process that would trigger at least one investigation in any administration [I’m sure that—if they wanted—certain intel services might be able to help™ with that]. However, this was not an issue in Brussels for years.
Who knows what the EU Commission will now come up with to avoid having to hand over the text messages. If they are finally made public, the much-needed clarification will finally be possible. In the so-called ‘Pfizergate’, it will then be necessary to clarify, among other things, whether von der Leyen acted on her own authority and whether too much and too expensive vaccine was ordered [I suppose the latter point is moot: since the order was based on pfraud about the product in question, it was]. Ultimately, this can only be seen from the vaccine contracts. They have now all been published, the Commission argues [against their will]. But firstly, the media and the European Parliament had to exert a lot of pressure for this. And secondly, the crucial passages were redacted.
The EU Commission Does Not Want Transparency
The EU Commission’s refusal to create transparency is deeply revealing [nope, it’s their MO, and if you, dear Mr. Schmeller, don’t realise this, there’s nothing anyone can do]. Anyone negotiating over 1.8 billion doses of vaccine with a presumed unit price of 20 euros or more is not doing so in private, but on behalf of around 450 million EU citizens [smacks like abuse of executive privileges, if not outright treason: alas, EU Law™ lacks the legal concept of ‘treason’]. It is about their money (more than 35 billion euros) and their health.
Von der Leyen herself is not yet on trial [if true, the word ‘yet’ is crucial here, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for putting VdL on trial—but since the EU Commission works at the direction of the so-called EU Council (the assembled heads of gov’t), even putting VdL on trial, as much as I wish for that to happen, falls way, way, way too short]. So far, all accusations have bounced off the former defence minister. Incidentally, the so-called ‘consultancy affair’ [orig. Berateraffäre] from her time in Berlin also involved missing text messages.
Anyone who believes that the Pfizer affair is a one-off exception in a historic state of emergency is mistaken. Because we are currently seeing exactly the same pattern in the EU-wide armament programme [turns out the whole EU is based on these and associated scams; best literature reference I can give you is Bernard Connolly’s The Rotten Heart of Europe (Faber & Faber, 1996)]. Brussels is planning to invest around 800 billion euros in the European defence industry by 2030. Joint ammunition purchases, new defence factories and direct contracts with industry are planned. Here too, there is a lack of insight, control, and public debate [I’ve written about this—and the implications go well beyond any one weapons deal—as it’s connected to the Commission’s recent coup d’état, i.e., it declared itself ‘sovereign’].
It remains unclear who decides how priorities are set and on what legal basis these sums are to be allocated [that’s incorrect: it’s a new ‘Defence Industrial Readiness Board’, which will do all of these things, as per the first of the two links in the preceding paragraph]. At the same time, rules such as the debt brake, which for decades were considered sacrosanct when it came to investments in the social and health sectors, are being thrown overboard [yep, the EU Commission declared weapons procurement ‘sustainable’ to achieve this; oh, lest we forget, this is, of course, illegal even under EU Law™].
If, in the case of the vaccine negotiations, the impression is created that von der Leyen has created a quasi-monopoly for Pfizer through secret agreements, then the question arises with all urgency as to whether such an approach will be repeated in the defence industry in the future [grasping for straws, eh?!]
A Warning Signal for the Future of the EU
The scandal surrounding the vaccine contracts is therefore not just a chapter of past pandemic policy, but a warning signal for the future of the European Union. Anyone claiming legitimacy must create transparency. If you want trust, you have to be accountable. And if you want to lead in a democracy, you have to be prepared to be scrutinised—especially when billions are at stake [no mention is made of the millions of lives at stake as regards what the weapons are for: war against Russia].
The EU therefore needs binding and verifiable transparency procedures for major contracts—and it needs them now [i.e., the EU lacks either]. Otherwise, all that will remain of the much-vaunted European solidarity is a chat between the President and the pharmaceutical boss that nobody can read [since arms are way more expensive than drugs (sorry not sorry Big Pharma), imagine the corruption…].
The fact that the lawsuit for publication of the text messages was initiated three years ago by a foreign newspaper such as the New York Times [lol as there’s not a hint of irony] also says a lot about the state of the media landscape in Germany and Europe. A rethinking is also necessary here—the press must report more critically and independently again [no comment].
Bottom Lines
I’ve written a lot about the EU and its shenanigans, the less-than-fine print of what is labelled EU Law™, and many more things here and there:
None of the above is new or even secret. What’s on display is yet another legacy media journo™ pretending that this is somehow ‘out of character’ for both Von der Leyen or the EU at-large.
It isn’t.
Anyone who, in mid-May 2025, claims that this is somehow news-worthy without noting, at the bare minimum in passing, that EU Law™ does not include the offence of ‘treason’ or omits the EU Council (that sets policy) is not very serious.
In fact, the Berliner Zeitung’s Mr. Schmeller has revealed himself to be a nut.
It’s also a perfect ‘fit’ in terms of our post-reality world.
Imagine the rude awakening of both journos™ and normies™.
Thank you 🙏 great information We all demand total transparency of all their shenanigans and I would like to know where is the trial Data that says it’s safe for them to give our livestock the deadly gene editing DNA contaminated MRNA vaccines and are they the waste vaccines they ordered for humans that everyone is refusing because they have watched their loved ones die or suffer severe adverse injuries from them 🙏
Terrible.The Governments just takes our money by the (unaccountable shitload)billion$- and yet the same actors get voted in.
Like in Canada-we(not me) stupidly voted for Bankster,Tax dodger,WHO,Eco fascist,Carney.
He must be salivating at the pile of free money he can get his claws into-to "invest."
He will align us with the EU and fear us into funding defence all while implementing "green initiatives."
How war heads,tanks and ammo is environmentally friendly is beyond reason.