Why did the alleged balance sheet manipulation at Wirecard go undetected for years? There was no shortage of allegations and investigations. Not only financial supervision, politics is also coming under increasing pressure. The opposition demands answers – also from the chancellery.
In the scandal surrounding the alleged billion-dollar fraud at the now insolvent Dax group Wirecard, the German government is now coming under increasing pressure. The opposition demands clarification – in particular from Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz from the SPD and the Chancellery. In the event that this does not happen, the Greens and the FDP threaten an investigation committee in the Bundestag, which the left already considers this "inevitable". The decision for a special meeting of the Finance Committee in the Bundestag could be made on Monday.
As the "Spiegel" first reported, the Federal Chancellery campaigned for the payment processor in the fall of 2019 to accompany Chancellor Angela Merkel on a trip to China. According to a report by his ministry, Scholz had been informed since February 19, 2019 that Bafin was investigating the Wirecard case "on suspicion of violating the ban on market manipulation". Wirecard granted alleged air bookings of 1.9 billion euros in June, the Munich public prosecutor's office is investigating former and active managers.
Before the trip, Merkel spoke to ex-Federal Minister of Economics Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who advised Wirecard. On the same day zu Guttenberg wrote an email to the head of the Department for Economic, Financial and Energy Policy at the Chancellery, Lars-Hendrik Röller, about Wirecard's intended market entry in China and asked for "flanking" as part of the trip. After the trip, Röller replied that the issue had been raised in China and agreed to "flank" further, a government spokeswoman confirmed.
FDP: Government must "clean up"
"Despite serious allegations and ongoing investigations, the federal government stood behind Wirecard," said the FDP's fiscal spokesman, Florian Toncar. What started as a balance sheet scandal has "arrived in the heart of the federal government." If the government doesn't "clean up", "then it stumbles closer to a committee of inquiry." Should this happen, it would be uncomfortable for Scholz, who is being treated as the SPD's candidate for chancellor for the federal election in the fall of 2021. Critics accuse him of not having sufficiently advanced the investigation against Wirecard.
The decision for a special meeting of the Finance Committee in the Bundestag could be made on Monday, as the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" reports. In the opposition, the CDU / CSU parliamentary group is expected to approve on Saturday and it is also assumed that the SPD will not raise any objections.
Green finance expert Danyal Bayaz said Scholz is avoiding the discussion about Wirecard. Clarification was made unnecessarily difficult for parliamentarians. "If we get the impression that the Treasury does not provide complete information, then we have to think about other parliamentary instruments." A special committee meeting is a first step. "In the end, I wouldn't rule out setting up a parliamentary committee of inquiry either."
From the left faction's point of view, a committee of inquiry must come. Group deputy Fabio de Masi said that the Chancellery and the Ministry of Finance had to explain, among other things, whether Merkel personally lobbied for Wirecard in China and whether the Chancellery knew about irregularities. "In order for us to be able to see all the necessary documents and hear important witnesses, a committee of inquiry is inevitable."
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