EU's chief von der Leyen to testify at German defence inquiry

EU Commission’s chief Ursula von der Leyen testifies on Thursday before a German parliamentary committee investigating possible wrongdoing from her side, related to the award of contracts to external experts, while serving in her previous post as Germany’s Defence Minister.
Von der Leyen’s tenure in Bundestag lasted from 2013 to 2019, during which, a major increase in the country’s defence budget was noted.
Germany’s Federal Audit Office reported that the ministry had awarded lucrative consultancy contracts during von der Leyen’s term, without first opening a competition or assessing the offers for economic value.
The former Defence Minister will probably be the last witness before the committee of inquiry on the consultant affair, which has already been meeting for a year, while the leftist MP Matthias Höhn asked von der Leyen to “admit mistakes” before the Bundestag’s investigative committee hearing.
Clash among German MPs intensified after the German Ministry of Defence “wiped” von der Leyen’s phone data in August, due to “security reasons,” despite requests for classifying them as “evidence.”