Ursula von der Leyen characterized the connection between her approval of the €320 million grant for the gene therapy research center in Padua and her husband Heiko von der Leyen's supervisory board seat there as a coincidence.

Reasoning:

• The claim that Ursula von der Leyen called the Padua link a "coincidence" traces back to viral social media posts (e.g., by accounts such as Mees Wynants) that end with the line "She calls it a coincidence"¹²³.
• No news report, official statement, interview transcript, or professional fact-check quotes von der Leyen making any such "coincidence" remark. The phrase appears only in the circulating social posts themselves.
• A debunking analysis of this exact viral narrative states explicitly: "There is also no reliable evidence that Ursula von der Leyen personally selected the project, directed the funding toward her husband or dismissed the controversy as a 'coincidence'"⁴.
• The documented official response came not from von der Leyen herself but from EU Transparency Commissioner Věra Jourová, who wrote that Heiko von der Leyen "had not been involved in the grant application process and the award," so "a conflict of interest of the President can also be excluded" — a finding of no conflict of interest, not a "coincidence" characterization⁵⁶.
• Underlying facts are partly real (Heiko von der Leyen was appointed to the supervisory board in Sept 2022 and resigned a month later; the €320M was PNRR/EU recovery funding), but the specific attributed quote about a "coincidence" is unsupported by any reliable source⁶⁴.

Overall validity: 10%