How much of a surprise should the EU’s handling of vaccines be, given the track record of EU President Ursula von der Leyen, the former German Defence Minister?
Her modus operandum seems to be to blame others for her own incompetence.
From RT:
In autumn 2017, Germany was literally left without its entire submarine fleet as all of the ships turned out to be either undergoing maintenance or in dire need of repairs. More than half of the Bundeswehr’s tanks were revealed to be unfit for service during the same year.
Dozens of assault rifles and pistols, as well as tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, have simply been stolen from the Bundeswehr on von der Leyen’s watch. The year 2014 – her second year in office – saw the biggest amount of equipment go missing, resulting in the loss of 21 weapons and more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition
From Sputnik:
“Von der Leyen is out weakest minister,” said Martin Schulz, a former German president. “That is apparently enough to become Head of the Commission.”
Her tenure as defence minister has recently come under increased scrutiny in Germany. “The Bundeswehr’s condition is catastrophic,” Rupert Scholz, one of her predecessors in the post, said last week.
‘Shortage Upon Shortage’
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- Recent reports in German media paint a sordid picture of endemic shortage of equipment in the national armed forces. For instance, Spiegel reported in May that out of Germany’s 128 Eurofighter jets, only ten were ready for combat missions due to a technical failure in their cooling systems.
- Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces Hans-Peter Bartels stated in a January report that less than half of Germany’s tanks, warships and aircraft suffered from a shortage of parts.
- Bartels, who called the Bundeswehr a “bureaucratic monster”, said that there was also a lack of personal equipment, such as protective vests, boots, clothing, modern helmets and night-vision devices. “There is neither enough personnel nor material, and often one confronts shortage upon shortage,” he concluded.
From Politico:
In addition to problems surrounding the German military’s readiness, von der Leyen’s ministry also faces an investigation into suspected wrongdoing surrounding its use of outside consultants, including Accenture and McKinsey.
The Bundestag, the German parliament, is currently holding hearings into the affair, including accusations that von der Leyen’s office circumvented public procurement rules in granting contracts worth millions of euros to the firms. Those hearings have taken a dramatic turn in recent days as testimony from key witnesses appeared to confirm suspicions of systematic corruption at the ministry.
Von der Leyen is also under fire for agreeing to refurbish the German navy’s three-masted training ship, the Gorch Fock. The overhaul of the ship, christened in 1958, has ended up costing more than 10 times what was originally projected.
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She offended many service members by saying publicly in 2017, after the discovery of a right-wing extremist in the ranks, that the Bundeswehr suffered from “weak leadership at various levels.”
phenell 