After the firefighter comes the clueless one: Brussels' succession planning brings no improvement.

There are politicians who fall over a single scandal. And then there's Ursula von der Leyen, who strides across a mountain range of scandals like she's on a catwalk. The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that she couldn't simply erase her text messages to the Pfizer CEO. The response from Brussels was prompt and essentially said: Interesting, we'll look into it.

On May 14, 2025, Luxembourg judges declared the Commission's refusal to grant the New York Times access to text messages exchanged between Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla invalid. The Commission had claimed the messages had never been archived and were therefore untraceable —an explanation the court deemed implausible. The Commission did n't even appeal the ruling . Instead, in August 2025, came the answer that says it all: the messages had long since been deleted, the phone replaced . You simply can't hand over something you've destroyed.

The woman whose cell phones have learned to forget
Anyone who believes this is an unfortunate isolated incident should consider the background. Back in 2019, when she was German Defense Minister, von der Leyen had the data on an official mobile phone deleted amidst the consultant scandal, justifying it with a... "Security incident"First the evidence disappears in Berlin, then the text messages vanish in Brussels – this isn't a series of blunders, it's a deliberate strategy. And the one supposedly responsible for the major cleanup is none other than... It was reportedly Cabinet Chief Björn Seibert who summarily dismissed the news as unimportant. – and that despite the fact that the publication had long since been officially applied forIn any other company in the world, that would be called destroying evidence; in Brussels, it's called record-keeping. We've already shown you how systematically this woman obstructs oversight. her impressive career in disappearances dissected.

The most expensive silence in EU history
The deleted conversations were about something serious. In spring 2021, the Commission placed an order with BioNTech/Pfizer. up to 1,8 billion doses, contract volume at the time estimated at around 35 billion euros – arranged, according to the New York Times, through a direct line between the president and the CEO. In total, Brussels signed off on the matter, according to the European Court of Auditors. Contracts worth 71 billion euros for up to 4,6 billion dosesThat's roughly ten syringes per EU citizen, including infants.

The fact that several member states later complained about excessive quantities and inflated prices fits the picture – as does the fact that even the Court of Auditors was not provided with requested information about the transaction . Furthermore, the European Public Prosecutor's Office has been investigating the vaccine purchases since October 2022. To be fair: an investigation is not an indictment, and a non-final ruling is not a conviction. However, one question arises that no prosecutor needs to ask: If someone has nothing to hide, why are they so diligently deleting information?

The next setback is already coming from Luxembourg.
On June 11, 2026, ECJ Advocate General Athanasios Rantos recommended in his Opinions in Cases C-631/24 P and C-632/24 P, reject the Commission's appeals and uphold the judgments already handed down to it in 2024 insufficient disclosure of the redacted vaccine contracts as certified. The agency's practices prevent any accountability, according to the expert. The verdict is expected in the coming months, and judges usually follow their Advocates General. The next resounding defeat is practically guaranteed – but nobody in Brussels seems willing to accept it.

Parliament: Outraged, but house-trained
And the people's representatives? They're playing the resistance game like a rabbit playing predator. In July 2025, a motion of no confidence failed with 175 to 360 votes, followed in October Two further motions were defeated with 133 and 179 votes respectively., in January 2026 the next one because of the Mercosur agreementThe ritual is always identical: The factions complain about the centralist leadership style, extract a few concessions – the Social Democrats, for example, had their loyalty pledged. compensate with commitments from the European Social Fund —and then dutifully vote for Uschi. In Brussels, they call that the separation of powers—but only the spoils are shared.

After Uschi comes Uschi 2.0
You know the mechanism from Berlin: Scholz had to go, Merz came – and the politics remained the same, just with a different face and bigger sunglasses. Brussels is currently rehearsing this exact same thing at the EUdSSR level. Anyone who believes that anything will change with the president's departure hasn't understood the system: The apparatus casts its own actors, and the requirements have long been established. They're looking for someone who keeps contracts secret, labels critics as Putin's puppets, and reflexively pulls new powers to Brussels in every crisis. The person is replaceable, the agenda isn't.

The perfect candidate is already standing in the foyer.
And lo and behold, the labor market delivers. Annalena Baerbock's term as President of the UN General Assembly ends September 8, 2026, then she lectures as a professor at Columbia University – we already offered our respectful congratulations on academic meteoric careerObjectively speaking, she has everything Brussels requires: she has never needed a position for which she was qualified, she has the necessary qualifications for her UN post Experienced top diplomat Helga Schmid sidelined —a maneuver that seasoned diplomats described as an affront—and she has mastered the art of selling every defeat as a feminist milestone. A woman who quotes international law from a playbook and understands foreign policy as a backdrop for selfies would be the logical crowning achievement of a system in which competence is now merely a nuisance. At least von der Leyen deleted her text messages—Baerbock would probably declare the entire archive colonial.

The bitter result remains, and it's on you. A court reprimands, a public prosecutor investigates, a parliament cowers – and the person responsible simply continues to govern as if transparency were a conspiracy theory. Her successor won't be any better, just younger and more photogenic. Brussels replaces a woman who makes evidence disappear, if necessary with a woman who doesn't even understand what evidence is. And this is all called "European values"!