Pfizergate: When contracts disappear and text messages rule Europe

It’s neither the first nor the last time that the top echelon of the European Union hides the truth, but it is the first time that an unimaginable amount of money, power, and lies has been concentrated in the private phone of the President of the European Commission. Ursula von der Leyen, the most powerful woman in the European Union, who oversees the fate of nearly half a billion Europeans, engaged in an “intimate” exchange of messages in 2021 with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, negotiating the procurement of COVID vaccines via SMS—worth over €35 billion.

Without any official record, publicly released contract, or confirmation that any expert team participated in the negotiations, all that remains—or rather, all that doesn’t—are deleted text messages. All of this, along with who knows how many other deals measured in millions of euros, would have remained completely in the dark if it weren’t for New York Times journalist Katarina Bounga, who uncovered how the negotiations were conducted. But when journalists and independent investigators finally raised the issue of the messages’ content, the first response was that the messages did not constitute “information of public interest.” And when a Belgian court ruled that the correspondence between von der Leyen and the Pfizer CEO was indeed of public interest, it turned out that the messages were not archived—they had been deleted.

In other words, a contract for one of the largest financial undertakings in EU history was made via mobile phone, privately, with no transparency whatsoever—and then the evidence was erased.

What we do know for certain is that the EU purchased over 1.8 billion doses of Pfizer vaccines. That the price increased during private negotiations, that many countries were forced to order far more doses than they needed, and that some, like Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria, ultimately refused to pay for what had been non-transparently agreed upon. Especially since the negotiations were conducted by the President of the European Commission at the EU level, yet the contracts were legally structured so that all financial and legal responsibility fell on the national governments—not the negotiator. We also know that Pfizer later sued those countries—not the European Commission, not Ursula—but the states themselves.

How did it come to this? No document gives an answer. Because there are no documents.

And that’s the beginning of a scandal that has come to be known as “Pfizergate.” A scandal not about money stolen from some treasury, but about the very principle of accountability being nullified. A scandal not concerning technicalities, but a fundamental question—who governs Europe: its institutions or Ursula von der Leyen’s phone?

When the people sue the elite

Although some media and activists filed lawsuits against the European Commission, “Pfizergate” officially became the subject of formal legal proceedings when Belgian lobbyist Frédéric Baldan filed a criminal complaint in April 2023 with an investigative judge in Liège against Ursula von der Leyen. Liège accused the President of the European Commission of abuse of office, destruction of documents, illegal and non-transparent negotiations, and corruption.

During the same period, individuals from multiple EU member states, as well as Hungary and Poland, joined the lawsuit. And so, even though Poland withdrew after Donald Tusk came to power, the lawsuit gained international character.

In its initial phase, the scandal received massive publicity, but the European Union decided to simply ignore it—as if it were a marginal initiative by unserious actors and as if the matter concerned not €35 billion but mere pocket change. Soon the media fell silent as well, and the course of the investigation and the narrative took utterly incredible turns. European media theories even went so far as to blame—none other than the Russians!

Laura Kovesi – a budget for a scandal

Although the media decided to remain silent “for the public good,” the court in Liège did not back down. A hearing was scheduled for May 17, 2024, where all parties to the dispute were supposed to be heard. However, just at the moment when it became clear that the case could enter a phase of serious revelations, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) stepped in. And instead of aiding the pursuit of truth, it took over the case and removed it from the jurisdiction of the Belgian court. The chief prosecutor behind this move was none other than Laura Kövesi.

At the same time, a new front emerged within the European institutions themselves. Although the main actor in this front was Prosecutor Kövesi, the battleground was not a courtroom—it was the budget. In April 2024, Laura Kövesi formally initiated a so-called amicable settlement with the European Commission. She sent a letter to the Commission warning that EPPO could not perform its duties without sufficient funding, particularly for IT support.

However, after receiving a negative response—that no additional funds were available—she issued an official warning to the Commission, threatening to take legal action before the EU Court of Justice if the budget wasn’t increased. While this is a part of standard institutional mechanisms in the EU, it is extremely rare for one EU institution to openly threaten another with a lawsuit.

Rare, but not impossible. Still, while waiting for a response to the formal warning, and just when it became evident that “Pfizergate” would indeed end up in court—on Belgian soil—amid a growing number of prosecutors and lawyers preparing for the May 17 hearing in Liège, a sudden, almost cinematic twist occurred: Kövesi took over the scandal of the century.

Although EPPO’s mandate is limited to financial crimes involving the EU budget, this case involved contracts made directly between individual member states and Pfizer—technically outside EPPO’s jurisdiction. This was explicitly stated by legal experts and by Frédéric Baldan himself, who claimed EPPO was “trying to monopolize jurisdiction despite clear limitations set by European treaties.”

The response from the European Commission—headed by Ursula von der Leyen—came back like a boomerang: EPPO’s budget was increased. In the first year by €5 million, and by 2025, the budget had risen to €71 million, compared to just €56.6 million in 2023—a significant increase. Proportionally, the investigation into the vaccine procurement—ceased.

Thus, paradoxically, the institution formally responsible for combating abuse within the EU not only received more money from the very government it was supposed to investigate, but effectively participated in shutting down the investigation. From the moment the funds were transferred, “Pfizergate” all but vanished from public discourse. The hearing in Liège never took place, the parties were never heard. And Ursula von der Leyen, despite the scandal, secured a renewed mandate with a majority in the Parliament.

The Next Chapter…

When the European Public Prosecutor’s Office took over the “Pfizergate” case, it was not merely a legal maneuver—it was a media breaking point. Until that moment, several reputable European and international outlets, along with independent investigators, had been closely following the scandal. But once EPPO claimed jurisdiction, media coverage dwindled—almost overnight.

And not just that—the investigation came to a complete halt. Interested parties—lawyers, prosecutors, researchers—were unable to obtain any information about the case, which now seemed to no longer exist.

French attorney Diane Protat, legal representative of one of the complainants, testified that on May 7, 2024, in Brussels, EPPO not only denied her access to the case file, but responded to her request by calling the police. She stated that EPPO claimed to “have no case” and refused to issue a formal statement to that effect. The police, upon arrival, classified EPPO’s actions as “obstruction of the right to defense.”

Following the incident, Protat filed a criminal complaint against both EPPO and Kövesi herself under Articles 151 and 152 of the Belgian Criminal Code for obstruction. She also notified the United Nations, specifically the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers.

Confirmation that the case was taken over before the Belgian investigative judge even had the chance to hear the parties came from Javier Alzarbe, editor of France Soir, who cited a source from the Liège prosecution office describing the takeover as “a political intervention aimed at blocking a national investigation.”

Such an intervention, according to French and Belgian sources, directly undermined the position of prosecutors and lawyers preparing to represent the victims, as EPPO’s procedure structure does not recognize civil complainants. In this way, only the European Union can be acknowledged as a victim, effectively stripping all other parties of their legal standing in the case.

Parallel universes

“Pfizergate” at the heart of the EU and the canopy collapse scandal in Novi Sad seem, at first glance, to have nothing in common. One case involves contracts worth billions of euros; the other, a tragedy that claimed 16 lives. Yet, in their deeper structure, both reveal the same pattern: systemic protection of those responsible, manipulation of the public, and controlled spin via the prosecution. In both Brussels and Belgrade, prosecutors have become political instruments—not in the service of justice, but in the service of power. The difference is, in Brussels it’s power protected by Brussels; in Belgrade, it’s not.

The Pfizergate case most clearly demonstrated how the highest form of corruption operates, where the most powerful woman in the European Union is shielded by the top European prosecutor, the media bury the case, and scandals involving amounts greater than Serbia’s entire national debt vanish as if they never existed.

In Serbia, the canopy collapse scandal receives its own version of silence—albeit with local characteristics. It’s not just about the fall of a metal structure in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024, but everything that followed. According to lawyer Vladimir Gajić and reports from Serbian media not controlled by the “collective West,” the entire judiciary— from Zagorka Dolovac to Mladen Nenadić—did not initiate an investigation to find the guilty, but rather to shield the truly responsible parties.

While pro-Western media praise the “awakening” of the prosecution, the familiar script plays out. They shout “wolf, wolf!” and shift attention to fabricated targets—those whom the very same pro-Western media, opposition, and NGO sector had already accused. Without investigation or trial, they branded them as culprits while the real actors were deliberately excluded from the entire investigative process.

When the public finally uncovered the truth through a single photo—a photo showing special prosecutor Mladen Nenadić with the organizers of the protests in Serbia, including Nebojša Bojović and Milutin Milošević, the very individuals who, under Zagorka Dolovac’s orders, were removed from the investigation, despite having signed off on the safety of the canopy that collapsed—the same media that had whipped the country into a near civil war flipped the narrative. Suddenly, they cast prosecutor Nenadić and chief prosecutor Dolovac as victims of political persecution for daring to arrest their chosen targets.

To make matters even more absurd, Milošević and Bojović appeared in the organizational structure of the protests—further complicating the situation. The entire picture became so surreal that the public found it hard to believe: the very individuals responsible for the collapsed canopy ended up organizing the protests sparked by that collapse, were excluded from the investigation, and then boldly posted a photo toasting with the prosecutor. The story takes on the contours of a thriller that no one would believe is based on real events.

Lawyer Vladimir Gajić, also president of the People’s Party, presented evidence that leaves no room for doubt. Citizens had reported structural damage to the canopy prior to its collapse. Surveillance footage exists. The remnants of the canopy were removed by a public utility company under the prosecution’s orders—within 24 hours. No technical staff who signed off on the structure’s acceptance have been prosecuted. No one knows where the technical reports, audits, or inspection logs are. Instead of investigating those directly responsible, arrests were made of officials who had no oversight over the works at the time of the incident.

So, when someone says that “a new Kövesi” might come to Serbia, we shouldn’t ask what she would bring. We should ask the counter-question: don’t Serbs already have their own Kövesi—just without the European illusion? Kövesi, Dolovac, Nenadić—different names, same mechanism.