Sharon Keogan (Independent)

I express my deep concern about the Government's unwavering deference to Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission. Considering the recent Pfizer-gate scandal, where text messages between Dr. von der Leyen and the Pfizer CEO regarding vaccine procurement mysteriously vanished, it is high time the Government began to chart its own course within the EU. While the European court's ruling is welcome, it does not go far enough in combating what can be described as the Commission's culture of impunity, a culture which promotes lack of transparency and accountability at the highest levels of the EU. In fact, this is not even the first case with von der Leyen, who faced a previous scandal over public contracts as German defence minister, even wiping her phone when German MPs sought to review her communications.

Meanwhile, the Government is not only failing to hold the Commission President to account; it is following the Commission's directives without question. Too many of us have heard the constant stories from our civil servants that policy is not being made by our national Government but instead is being copied from Brussels. Take the Mercosur deal, for instance, which will decimate our farming industry overnight, if passed. Unlike the governments of France and Poland, our Government is not even willing to signal its opposition to the deal, much less to fight it.

Following this breach of ethnical and administration standards, along with so many others such as those found by the former European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, I call on President von der Leyen to resign and I strongly urge the Government to echo this call. It is a long shot but it is high time we began standing up for transparency.