The EU chief’s failures to keep messages in which she made billions worth of deals was the subject of a move by lawmakers
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s notoriety for losing hundreds of phone messages crucial to oversight probes into multi-billion euro deals has inspired a group of lawmakers to mock her by proposing she be given a phone with a bigger memory.
Von der Leyen has previously deleted or ‘lost’ hundreds of messages in which she respectively negotiated a seven-hundred-million euro contract during her controversial time as German defense minister and in which she made a 35 billion euro ($40 billion) deal for Covid-19 vaccines with Pfizer.
Most recently von der Leyen’s office refused to release communications with French President Emmanuel Macron in which he reportedly urged her to block a bloc trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc. European Ombudswoman Teresa Anjinho has opened an investigation into the failure to retain crucial communications.
The Commission said the text, sent via the Signal app, was automatically deleted due to an array of reasons, including storage limitations.
The lawmakers’ amendment, led by German MEP Christine Anderson and Sweden’s Charlie Weimers, calls for “adequate funding to provide the President of the Commission with a mobile phone with sufficient storage capacity and appropriate IT support to ensure that all messages are preserved without exception,” as quoted by Politico.
It has been co-signed by 57 MEPs – mostly from right-wing parties – in a stunt described by the outlet as “trolling.”
The EU’s Court of Justice previously ruled that official communications from devices held by individuals must be properly archived – with the body vowing to review its protocols in response.
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