There are weeks that look like Stations of the Cross. For Olaf Scholz, this is the case of the one that is ending. In the space of four days, the German Chancellor went through three ordeals which, although of very different natures, testify to the fragilities which are his only eight months after his arrival in power and on the eve of a return to school which is difficult announcement for his entire government.
It was in the Parliament of Hamburg, Friday August 19, that Olaf Scholz’s black week ended. For three and a half hours, the Chancellor had to submit to questions from the commission of inquiry responsible for understanding why the tax administration of the Hanseatic city decided, in 2016, not to claim 47 million euros in arrears. taxes to a local bank, MM Warburg & Co, involved in the gigantic tax avoidance scandal of the “CumEx Files”.
Mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018, Olaf Scholz has always presented himself as a stranger to this affair. “I had no influence on the Warburg tax procedure”he hammered again before the commission of inquiry on Friday, annoyed by the “guesses” and “innuendo” of those who claim otherwise.
In the past, this line of defense has proven effective. In April 2021, it allowed Olaf Scholz, then Minister of Finance and candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) for the chancellery, to get out of a first hearing before the Hamburg parliamentary commission of inquiry without too much difficulty. . And, despite their attempts, his political opponents failed to exploit this affair to prevent his victory in the September 2021 legislative elections.
The fear of a “winter of anger”
A year later, the position of the one who has since become chancellor is more uncomfortable. In the meantime, the investigation has indeed advanced, and new questions arise. For example, on the exchanges that took place between Olaf Scholz and the leaders of the Warburg bank in 2016, the year when it escaped its 47 million euros in tax adjustment. For a long time, the future chancellor claimed to have met them only once. Now, he admits having had three meetings with them. Of the content of their discussions, on the other hand, he claims to have no memory.
For the opposition, such amnesia is suspect. “There are not many people in Germany to swallow Olaf Scholz’s memory lapses”, quipped Friedrich Merz, chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In this case, the conservative right is on the same line as the left-wing party Die Linke, with which it already seems ready to reach an agreement to organize, in the coming months, a new hearing of the Chancellor before the commission Hamburg parliamentary inquiry.
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