Dhe history of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s “Climate Foundation”, which is full of inconsistencies, has taken another turn: a tax officer burned three of the foundation’s tax returns. She did this “in a knee-jerk reaction”, was “panic”, said the responsible public prosecutor’s office in Stralsund on Thursday. The officer acted in this way because the documents were left with her and because of the “pressure that arose from the search operation”. The public prosecutor’s office thus confirmed a process that was first reported by the magazine “Cicero”. So far, the originals of the tax returns were considered missing. Since a large part of the funds available to the foundation are funds from the Russian state-owned company Gazprom, the process caused a stir.
The “MV Climate and Environmental Protection” foundation was founded in early 2021. Formally, it served to protect the environment. According to critics, however, the foundation, equipped with Russian money, was actually supposed to help complete the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and circumvent American sanctions. In 2021, the foundation twice received ten million euros from a Gazprom subsidiary. A dispute arose over whether gift tax had to be paid.
No, was the answer from the point of view of the foundation and apparently also of the state government for a long time. After all, one dedicates oneself to the common good, i.e. environmental protection. According to “Cicero”, there was political pressure in Schwerin not to levy taxes. The course apparently changed later. The tax office issued a notice of ten million euros gift tax. The foundation is now defending itself against this in court.
Demand for quick clarification
After the start of the Russian war of aggression, Schwerin, which has traditionally been extremely pro-Russian, also underwent a U-turn. Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) announced shortly after the invasion that the foundation would be dissolved. However, it continues and Schwesig’s predecessor as Prime Minister, Erwin Sellering (SPD), is still the chairman of the board of the foundation. He resists their dissolution.
Schwesig defended her country’s line on Thursday. With Nord Stream 2, “the line of the federal government was followed,” she told “Deutschlandfunk”. As far as the missing tax return is concerned, Schwesig said that the State Chancellery and “especially the Prime Minister” had no influence on the question of how much tax someone had to pay. The incident must be cleared up quickly. She referred to Finance Minister Heiko Geue (SPD), who is considered one of her confidants. The informed that all documents for taxation are available to the tax office; the tax returns destroyed “in panic” had been requested. “There was no political interference.”
High political pressure
If it were really as Geue stated, then the employee would not have burned the documents in panic, but admitted her mistake, said the chairman of the CDU parliamentary group, Franz-Robert Liskow. The chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, René Domke, spoke of an “absurd and outrageous process”. There must have been incredibly high political pressure for a civil servant to even have the idea of burning the declarations. Schwesig had to explain the process completely.
Harald Terpe, group leader of the Greens, spoke of a “political earthquake”: Finance Minister Geue and Justice Minister Jacqueline Bernhardt (Die Linke) have known about the burned tax returns since the beginning of May 2022, but they have not informed parliament or the public.
The “Climate Foundation” initially did not respond to a request on Thursday. Last year, Sellering tried to get the foundation to stop answering journalists’ questions about the foundation’s background. He had failed both before a regional court and before the Higher Regional Court.
After United States sanctions against the pipeline operators, the foundation even bought a ship to use in the completion of the pipeline. At the beginning of 2022, Sellering had written that the state government and state parliament had given the foundation the additional mandate to contribute to the completion of the pipeline with an economic business operation, if necessary. “Due to the behavior of the USA, this mission was unfortunately necessary.”
A parliamentary committee of inquiry into the climate foundation began work in May 2022, and the first witnesses were interviewed in January of this year. The educational efforts are described by members as extremely tough; it is a long way from being able to answer relevant questions, and it is said that there is a lot to work through.