Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was called to testify in front of the European Union with their Special Committee on COVID-19. He was expected to face tough questions on how the vaccine deals were struck with European countries and contracts agreed to.
Bourla subsequently backed out of this meeting that was set to take place on October 10. This committee is meeting with key officials involved in the EU's vaccine procurement process to draw lessons on how to respond to future pandemics.
Other pharmaceutical companies have already met with this commission, including the CEO of Moderna and senior officials with Astra-Zeneca.
Politico recently reported that an European Union watch dog audit report into the EU's vaccine procurement strategy published earlier in September raised new questions about contact between Bourla himself and the European Commission president Ursula Vonderlein. That meeting preceded Pfizer receiving a multi-billion Euro vaccine contract.
The question is: why is there a cushy relationship between Bourla and Vonderlein?
After a visit to BioNtech headquarters last week, VanBrent, a Belgian MEP, said in a written statement that she looked forward to discussions with other CEOs, including Bourla, on October 10.
In the report, they found that Vonderlein had been directly involved in preliminary negotiations for Europe's biggest vaccine contracts, up to 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer jab, which concluded in May 2021. This was a departure from the negotiating procedure used with other contracts.
To this day, no explanation has been given on why Pfizer received such extra special treatment by EU's Vonderlein. A negotiating team was generally involved with the pharmaceutical complex, but there was an exception made for Pfizer. Making matters worse, the EU Commission has refused to provide records of the discussions with Pfizer to the public.
The 17-minute long video below includes additional information about this situation.
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