The conservative bloc of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) is initiating a vote to set up a parliamentary commission to investigate the role of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Kum Ax case, Der Spiegel magazine reported today, June 9.
As representatives of the faction noted, the conservative bloc plans to put a proposal to create an investigative commission on the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the Bundestag Election Control Committee, which is scheduled for this Thursday, June 15.
In turn, the ruling Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) is making efforts to limit the list of questions that opposition parliamentarians could ask Scholz in connection with the Kum-Ex corruption scandal. According to representatives of the SPD, the commission of inquiry of the Hamburg parliament, before which the acting chancellor testified in the summer of 2022, has already “shed light on many questions affecting the details of this case.” “Therefore, it is more expedient for the Bundestag Investigation Commission to ask Scholz a limited range of questions,” the Social Democrats noted. However, the representatives of the CDU/CDU rejected the remarks of the Social Democrats and called the arguments of the political opponents “a delaying tactic”.
“The factions of the ruling coalition have so far not made any attempt at any level to inform the minority that filed the petition about specific constitutional problems that could become an obstacle to the creation of a commission of inquiry,” – the letter of the deputies of the CDU / CSU says.
As the magazine notes, the right to create commissions of inquiry is one of the constitutionally enshrined rights of the opposition in the Bundestag. To activate a mechanism that allows parties to call a “suspect” to clarify the details of a case or scandal, the support of at least 25% of parliamentarians is required, while the CDU / CSU faction “gaining the necessary quorum.”
Earlier, the German media reported that the ruling SPD would like the decision to create a commission of inquiry to be taken “only as a last resort”, and the list of questions asked to Scholz was “significantly reduced” in nature.
In early April, the German Bundestag initiated the creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate the role of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Kum-Ex tax scandal around M.M. Warburg”. The Cum-Ex case (from the Latin Cum-Ex, which is two prepositions – from and from) is called the largest tax fraud in the recent history of Germany and even “the largest tax theft in the history of Europe.” From 2001 to 2016 alone, scammers defrauded the German state of €30 billion.
In May, Der Spiegel magazine published excerpts from a previously unavailable document from the German Ministry of Finance, which indicate that Scholz could not help remembering multiple meetings with the co-owner of the controversial bank M.M. Warburg” Christian Olearius during his testimony to the financial committee of the Bundestag in the summer of 2020.
Earlier, German parliamentarians repeatedly questioned Scholz’s “forgetfulness”, accusing him of giving false evidence. “This vast gap in the chancellor’s memory of specific meetings raises many questions that need to be clarified,” said the chairman of the CDU/CSU conservative bloc faction in early April. Matthias Middelberg.
2023-06-09 15:39:00
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