Reflections on the margins of the COVID procurement debate

The scale of the European Union's COVID vaccine purchases places Hungary's disputed ventilator procurement in a much broader frame, argues this Magyar Nemzet opinion article. The author says the Tisza party is trying to turn crisis-era stockpiling into a criminal case after the fact, with Brussels allegedly helping through support and silence.

The article says the relevant background material does not prove concealment because the ministry itself recorded the markup. Choosing not to launch an immediate lawsuit at the end of 2020, while the pandemic was raging and supply links had to be maintained, may have required managerial judgment. The author argues that assigning civil, and especially criminal, liability in those circumstances is highly questionable.

The EU comparison is presented in stark figures. According to the European Court of Auditors, the European Commission signed 11 contracts with eight manufacturers between August 2020 and November 2021, potentially covering 4.6 billion vaccine doses including options, at an expected cost of nearly 71 billion euros. The third Pfizer-BioNTech contract, signed in May 2021, covered 900 million guaranteed doses and another 900 million optional doses. The guaranteed order later reached 1.1 billion doses. The article contrasts the earlier EU Pfizer price of 15.5 euros per dose with a publicly reported 19.5 euros under the third contract.

A 2023 Politico tally cited by the article found that EU member states had destroyed at least 215 million delivered doses, representing losses of about 4 billion euros. The author calculates that Hungary's 300 billion forints in ventilator spending amounted to about 850 million euros at the 2020 exchange rate. The six companies' reported 13.5 billion to 15.5 billion forint figure represented roughly 38 million to 44 million euros, while a company's disputed 384,000-dollar difference equaled about 115 million to 130 million forints.

The article also points to questions surrounding the third Pfizer contract. The New York Times reported that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen negotiated with Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla through text messages. The Commission later said the messages were ephemeral and could not be found. On July 17, 2024, the EU General Court ruled in two cases that the Commission had not granted sufficiently broad access to vaccine contracts. The court did not annul the contracts, and no criminal conviction against von der Leyen exists. The author then invokes Hungary's criminal code, arguing that breach of trust requires intent and differs from negligent management when awareness of financial harm amounts only to negligence.