Because the Federal Ministry of Health did not keep promises to suppliers of corona masks, there was a flood of lawsuits. 120 settlements have now been concluded. Karl Lauterbach’s house kept secret for a long time what this cost the taxpayer. Now there is an answer.
Just three months ago, Karl Lauterbach portrayed himself as a determined clarifier of the expensive mask purchases at the beginning of the corona pandemic. The SPD Federal Health Minister stated that the shortcomings from the past legislative period would be fundamentally addressed.
He specifically entrusted a special representative with the investigation: his party colleague Margaretha Sudhof, a former state secretary. Lauterbach promised that it would be cleaned out. Every stone will be turned over in the affair. Those were pithy words.
However, when Lauterbach announced his transparency offensive, his company continued to stubbornly refuse to answer press inquiries. Under the previous Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU), suppliers were promised that they would purchase all protective masks at a guaranteed price within a certain period of time.
This led to an oversupply, which is why the federal government often refused to meet its obligations. This resulted in a flood of lawsuits, whereupon Lauterbach’s house sometimes gave in and settled. WELT AM SONNTAG wanted to know what costs the taxpayer incurred as a result.
Instead of providing information, Lauterbach’s ministry initially remained stubborn. Reference was made, for example, to “company and business secrets” as well as “fiscal interests and negotiating positions of the federal government in the context of future settlements”.
As a result, on July 18, a reporter from WELT AM SONNTAG submitted an application to the responsible administrative court in Cologne to force the ministry to give an answer (ref. 6 L 1383/24). It would then take more than two months before Lauterbach granted at least a little bit of transparency.
At the beginning of the legal dispute, the ministry said that “around 80 disputes” had been ended through settlements. There are now 120, it said. Delivery companies have now received around 390 million euros. On average, each company collected 3.25 million euros. According to the ministry, 40 settlements had already been concluded before a lawsuit was filed. This confirms the suspicion that payments to suppliers were unlawfully withheld.
What is remarkable is how Lauterbach explains why he is now suddenly providing information. He doesn’t bow to pressure from the press. Rather, his house now informed WELT AM SONNTAG that the ministry had recently received a parliamentary inquiry.
And suddenly all the “company and business secrets” that supposedly made an answer impossible until then apparently no longer play a role. If a member of parliament wants to know something, their own standards apply – “fiscal interests of the federal government” or not.
When it comes to transparency, Lauterbach obviously operates according to a two-class law. Accordingly, the request for information from the press, which according to the Federal Constitutional Court fulfills the function of a public watchdog, is subordinate to the MPs’ right to ask questions.
This distinction cannot be found in the Basic Law. Article 5 guarantees freedom of the press and freedom of reporting, Article 38 describes the position and rights of members of the Bundestag. These principles, which are enshrined in the constitution, stand side by side on an equal footing.
Lauterbach still does not want to answer questions from WELT AM SONNTAG about details of the comparisons. As before, this is justified by “fiscal interests and business secrets of the federal government”. For this reason, the legal dispute before the Cologne Administrative Court will continue.
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