The EU Ombudsman launches investigation into von der Leyenʼs secret chat with Zelensky and European leaders

The European Unionʼs human rights commissioner Teresa Aninu has launched an investigation into a secret chat between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders.

This is reported by the Dutch journalism platform Follow the Money (FTM).

This is a chat that also included German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who recently declared his resignation.

The investigation does not concern the content of the correspondence itself, but rather a possible violation of transparency rules by the European Commission, which refused to disclose the messages to journalists.

The existence of the chat became known in January 2026, first reported by Politico. In this chat, among other things, politicians discussed how to interact with US President Donald Trump.

After that, Follow the Money turned to the European Commission with a request to provide access to the correspondence, but was refused. The EC then stated that the publication of the materials could harm the international relations of the European Union with third countries. Then the journalists filed a complaint with the Ombudsman.

“I have decided to open an investigation into how the Commission handled the complainant’s request under EU law on public access to documents,” Anyinu said in a letter seen by FTM.

The Ombudsman has sent the Commission a request for a meeting to discuss the Follow the Money complaint by mid-July. The investigation is likely to last several months.

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