Ursula von der Leyen has just appointed Anna Athanasopoulou, a Greek archaeologist, to the Directorate for Financial Planning and Digital Solutions within the Directorate-General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. This very surprising choice raises obvious questions about the European Commission’s competence to choose suitable experts.
French MEP Virginie Joron pointed out that this decision came after other equally odd appointments. An archaeologist is currently managing the digital and financial future of Europe, while a translator is leading European public health and a psychologist oversees Pfizer contracts.
These choices highlight a worrying trend in Brussels, where key positions are being given to people without direct expertise in the field concerned.
In March 2020, psychologist Stella Kyriakides was appointed by von der Leyen to serve on a special task force to coordinate the European Union’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kyriakides came under attack by the public for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. However, Kyriakides rejected all criticism and defended the EU joint procurement strategy, claiming that it had “medical and social virtues”.
Health Director-General Sandra Gallina is another such appointment. She happens to be an Italian translator and therefore a curious choice to currently oversee EU food safety issues.
As a reminder, von der Leyen and her supporters have been dogged by serious corruption allegations.
When the European Ombudsman accused von der Leyen of maladministration for failure to disclose her correspondence with Pfizer’s CEO upon a FOI request, and for claiming that the messages had “disappeared”, and for further claiming that the vaccine line item of the EU’s budget was “confidential”, Kyriakides stepped in to inform the European Parliament that von der Leyen had played “no role” and “was not involved in the negotiations on the Covid vaccine contract”. The scandal that erupted was reported as “Pfizergate”.
Already at the time of von der Leyen’s nomination as president of the European Commission, an investigative committee of the German parliament had been looking into how, during her time as minister of defence of Germany, lucrative contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight.
In December 2019, German parliamentarians accused her of torpedoing the investigation into her alleged wrongdoing by deleting data from her official phone after it was declared evidence in the investigation. She then claimed that the deletion of the phone data was “for security reasons”.
During the pandemic, Ursula von der Leyen’s husband Heiko had also benefited from European funds through Global Gateway – the global investment program of the European Union, financed to the tune of 300 billion euros.
Ursula von der Leyen appoints archaeologist to lead Europe’s digital planning – Free West Media