{"id":446323,"date":"2025-09-23T17:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T17:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/446323\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T17:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T17:08:10","slug":"eu-watchdog-probes-macrons-text-to-von-der-leyen-requesting-mercosur-delay-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/446323\/","title":{"rendered":"EU watchdog probes Macron\u2019s text to von der Leyen requesting Mercosur delay \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Follow the Money journalist Alexander Fanta <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/alexfanta.bsky.social\/post\/3lziivaqsw22a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">requested<\/a> access to the message, but the Commission replied it could not identify the text as \u201cthe &#8216;disappearing messages&#8217; feature of the instant-messaging mobile application \u2018Signal\u2019\u00a0was activated on the phone on which the message had been received,&#8221; according to the Ombudsman.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission told the complainant that von der Leyen and her head of cabinet had decided there was no need to register the message and let it disappear.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not the first time von der Leyen\u2019s handling of text messages has come under scrutiny. In May, an EU court\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/pfizergate-verdict-ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-commission-wrong-secret-texts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found<\/a>\u00a0that the European Commission had been wrong to refuse access to von der Leyen\u2019s text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. In that case, the European Commission also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/commission-reviewed-von-der-leyens-pfizergate-texts-then-let-them-disappear\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reviewed<\/a> the texts in question and allowed them to be lost.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.europa.eu\/en\/opening-summary\/en\/211703\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ombudsman has asked the Commission<\/a> for a meeting by mid-October to discuss Macron&#8217;s text and wants the EU executive to share documents showing the &#8220;steps taken by the Commission in dealing with the access request&#8221; by Oct. 1.<\/p>\n<p>The message from Macron, a long-time opponent of the EU-Mercosur trade deal, was sent in January 2024 when France was facing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/france-tractors-farmer-protests-gabriel-attal-emmanuel-macron\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">massive farmer protests<\/a>. The trade deal was ultimately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-mercosur-countries-seal-controversial-trade-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sealed<\/a> in December last year.<\/p>\n<p>POLITICO has reached out to the Commission and Macron&#8217;s office for comment.<\/p>\n<p>This article has been updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow the Money journalist Alexander Fanta requested access to the message, but the Commission replied it could not&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[34,2000,299,5187,27645,36,22708,1201,6862,11587,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-446323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-emmanuel-macron","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-farmer-protest","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-mercosur","15":"tag-trade","16":"tag-trade-agreements","17":"tag-transparency","18":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115254716273382927","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}