CDU and CSU want to bring the SPD chancellor candidate in the finance committee in need. But the goal fails in the beginning. Nevertheless, the social democrat has to make an admission which, from the opposition’s point of view, does not at all fit in with his self-portrayal.
On Monday morning around 10 a.m., Olaf Scholz provided the public with a new indication that could consolidate his image of being a clever strategist. He suddenly appeared in the Bundestag Finance Committee himself, came through a back entrance so that the cameras couldn’t film him. The surprise effect was all the greater because the SPD had spread over the weekend that the Federal Finance Minister would interrupt his election campaign in Baden-Württemberg and join the special session online – quite common because of the corona pandemic.
The SPD candidate for chancellor thwarted the Union’s plan to accuse him of disregarding the Bundestag or to have him summon what would have ended up like this: Scholz runs for a report. CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak said on Sunday: “If Mr Scholz does not personally answer parliamentary questions on Monday and prefers to campaign, it would be the next derailment. Then he will screw parliament.” Other Union politicians had expressed themselves similarly, combined with the reference that Scholz was promoting himself in the population with the motto “Respect” – if he did not come, that would be disrespectful to the MPs.
But Scholz was there and pushed the Union from the offensive onto the defensive. After the meeting, the Social Democrat stood there as the one who could claim to have voluntarily renounced the election campaign and – regardless of how one evaluates his statements – to have willingly given information about his government actions. In relation to the special session, the Union was no longer able to credibly raise the accusation that the hunt for votes was more important to him than that of money launderers.
Scholz is interviewed individually
The Social Democrats celebrated their comrade and spoke of an own goal for the Union. The SPD deputy Jens Zimmermann saw his position confirmed that it was “only about campaign noise without substance”. How poisoned the atmosphere between the outgoing government partners CDU and CSU as well as SPD is a week before the election is already evident from the fact that the Union voted with the opposition on a procedural issue – from the perspective of the Social Democrats, a violation of the coalition agreement, which is a uniform Vote required.
It was about the way Scholz was interviewed. The Union and the opposition jointly ensured that the minister would be questioned by all parliamentary groups one after the other. Usually the questions of the MPs are collected and answered in the block. “What is particularly unusual is that it is voted on at the beginning of a meeting,” said Zimmermann. This shows “how nervous the Union is” and “panic”.
The special session essentially revolved around the investigations against employees of the anti-money laundering unit FIU, which is linked to the Federal Ministry of Finance. Ten days ago, prosecutors from Osnabrück examined digitally stored documents and e-mails in the Scholz department. The investigation revolves around the question of whether the FIU passed on information from banks about terrorist financing to the police and the judiciary too late, which is why planned acts could not be detected. The prosecutors want to find out which FIU employees had professional contacts in Berlin.
Minister has never met FIU heads
There is no investigation against the minister and officials directly subordinate to him. The Union’s candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, had publicly tried to give the impression that Scholz himself was suspected of indirectly promoting criminal machinations, but did not repeat the suggestions in the last triad. The SPD protested against Laschet’s statements by pointing out that the senior public prosecutor in charge of the proceedings was a CDU member with political ambitions. The opposition parties Left, Greens and FDP had requested the special session. The Union had jumped on the bandwagon.
Committee members who are not inclined to Scholz described his appearance as “slick as always”, “arrogant” and “self-portrayal”. When processing suspicious activity reports, the FIU does not comply with what Scholz is chalked up to. According to participants, the candidate for Chancellor defended himself as so often in the past few days by saying that he had significantly increased the number of employees in the authority. New people have to be trained first. The dismantling of the clues is progressing well. The SPD MP Zimmermann said that “nothing got around” at the meeting. There is more in the media than what the Treasury Department is allowed to publicly explain based on the investigation.
The opposition saw it very differently. Lisa Paus from the Greens said that Scholz had not contributed anything to the clarification or real error analysis, but that he again rejected “all responsibility for the chaos” at the FIU and the fight against money laundering. FDP financial expert Florian Toncar made a similar statement. The FIU as an important component in the discovery of dark money flows is a “real ruin”. The grid used by the unit to evaluate suspicious activity reports shows “terrifying gaps” that Scholz did not close. The AfD MP Kay Gottschalk said: “Scholz took two hours and said nothing again.”
At one point, however, the opposition was able to torpedo Scholz’s self-portrayal, according to its own assessment, that he was intensely concerned with the FIU. According to several committee members, the minister admitted that he had never visited the authority during his term of office and that he had first met its head Christof Schulte in person at the special session. Gottschalk called this “a new hammer in the list of many hammers” that Scholz had done. And Toncar said: “You couldn’t show your disinterest more clearly.”