Whirling around the founding act
CDU calls for Schwesig’s resignation
4/30/2022, 9:22 p.m
The allegations against Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister do not stop. According to a media report, the founding documents of the controversial environmental foundation have disappeared. The state government denies it, the CDU calls for Schwesig’s resignation.
After further allegations against Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig in connection with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline, the CDU has called for the resignation of the SPD politician. “The allegations against Manuela Schwesig weigh heavily,” said CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja of “Welt am Sonntag”. “Should they come true, she would have done her office serious damage.”
Czaja commented on the occasion of a report by “Welt am Sonntag”, according to which the main file for the founding of the controversial state-owned environmental foundation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania should not be found. According to the report, the disappearance of the files means that it is no longer possible to understand to what extent and with what methods Russia influenced the policy of the state government in Schwerin in connection with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.
Czaja asked Chancellor Olaf Scholz to clarify the Kremlin’s influence on his party’s politics. “A Prime Minister who allows herself to be controlled by a foreign state is not acceptable,” he said. The CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen made a similar statement. It was “completely impossible that Mrs. Schwesig stays in office”. Hannes Damm, spokesman on energy policy for the Greens in the state parliament, said he was “stunned” by the disappearance of the main file on the founding of the foundation. “It raises a lot of new questions,” he said.
Schwerin rejects allegations
The state government denied the report. “The Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Economic Affairs agree that the documents for the establishment of the climate protection foundation have been handed over to the energy department,” said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Interior in Schwerin. The media report is also based on statements by the country’s current Minister of the Interior and former Energy Minister, Christianpegel. The SPD politician was unable to answer the question of where the documents from his former ministry ended up.
Schwesig has been criticized for a long time. Both the Greens and the CDU and FDP accuse the state government they lead – until mid-November in a coalition with the CDU and since then in an alliance with the left – of policies that are too pro-Russian. In particular, it is about the controversial state-owned Climate and Environmental Foundation of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
This helped in 2021 through covert business activities to complete the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline, which will not be put into operation due to the Russian attack on Ukraine. According to media reports, the pipeline company Nord Stream 2 AG exerted a strong influence on the state government when the foundation was established. Starting in May, the processes surrounding the foundation will occupy a committee of inquiry in the Schwerin state parliament, which the CDU, Greens and FDP have set in motion.