It’s not going well for Olaf Scholz right now. From the Chancellor’s point of view, the second testimony before the Hamburg Cum-Ex investigative committee is untimely. The premiere was marked by large gaps in memory. Now butter has to go to the fish, demands the opposition.
On Friday, April 30, 2021, the then Federal Minister of Finance and SPD candidate for chancellor was first in a cheerful chatting mood, and later quite tight-lipped. “It was a bizarre appearance by Mr. Scholz,” recalls Götz Wiese, representative of the CDU parliamentary group in the Parliamentary Investigation Committee (PUA), of Olaf Scholz’ first witness appearance in the Hamburg part of the cum-ex scandal.
On his return to the Hanseatic City of Hamburg, where he had been Mayor for seven years, Scholz walked expansively through the Kaisersaal on his welcoming round and invested a lot of time in handshakes and small talk. “He behaved as if he were still the head of the town hall,” said Wiese.
Now save articles for later in “Pocket”.
This Friday, August 19, 2022, from 2 p.m., Scholz will again be a guest with friends and less good old acquaintances. In the meantime, Scholz has risen from finance minister to chancellor, but the issue of the committee of inquiry has remained.
The question is still whether, as mayor, he influenced the preferential treatment of the Hamburg Warburg Bank, which was involved in cum-ex transactions. In 2016, the tax authorities in the Hanseatic city allowed a claim for 47 million euros to run into the statute of limitations, and another tax claim for 43 million euros was only raised after the Federal Ministry of Finance intervened.
During his survey in April 2021, Scholz said that exerting influence would have been “political stupidity”, which he is not inclined to do. And anyway: He has no recollection of the specific content of his meetings with the owners of the bank.
It was supposed to be an afternoon of oblivion, which is precisely why it is so well remembered. “I can only report what has become public knowledge,” was Scholz’s mantra. Scholz referred to his lack of memory more than 20 times in the public part of the meeting alone.
Opposition representatives were annoyed by the appearance and demeanor. “The mood in the hall became more and more irritated by Scholz’s permanent memory gaps,” reports CDU politician Wiese to FOCUS online.
Norbert Hackbusch, chairman of the left, said immediately after the meeting that the appearance was a five-hour refusal to testify. Now, in an interview with FOCUS online, he follows up: “When he was first questioned, Scholz always acted as if he couldn’t remember at all. I think that’s completely unbelievable.”
Also interesting:
And further: “We know that the cum-ex transactions in Hamburg were not properly processed by the tax authorities. For us, the question therefore arises as to whether it was ‘just’ sleepiness” or more. For example, that Olaf Scholz, as mayor, kept his protective hand over Warburg.”
The committee of inquiry was originally set up after Scholz’s meetings with the two bank owners, Max Warburg and Christian Olearius, became known through the publication of diary entries in the media. The diaries belonged to Olearius and had been seized in the course of the investigation against him on suspicion of serious tax evasion.
Scholz justified his memory gaps in his first survey with the large number of conversations that he had as mayor with companies. “My appointments usually took place without a break from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m..”
In addition, the talks were “many years ago, and they were very eventful years for me”. However, a review of his calendar later revealed that he received Olearius and Warburg on September 7 and October 26, 2016 at City Hall, and that he called Olearius himself on November 9. There was another meeting on November 10, 2017 in the town hall. However, he could not say anything about the content of the respective conversations because he had no memory whatsoever.
“Scholz must now deliver in the second survey,” demands CDU chairman Götz Wiese. “Everything has to be on the table.” Because: “Cum-Ex is a political scandal of the first order – the people involved must now explain themselves, especially Scholz as the then mayor.” Left chairman Hackbusch expects from Scholz that the ” pondered how to solve his credibility problem in preparation for witness questioning on Friday.”
Milan Pein, chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the PUA, does not understand the excitement. More than 50 witnesses from different offices, authorities and departments had made it very clear, independently of one another, that there had been no political influence on Warburg Bank’s tax proceedings.
“The city did not suffer any damage, the bank paid the money and the city even has a surplus in the state treasury today due to interest on evasion,” explains Pein. “These facts will not change either as a result of the Chancellor’s questioning on Friday or as a result of the opposition’s wild speculation in recent days.”
Pein finds Scholz’s explanation that he can no longer remember the details to be completely plausible and credible, if only because of the high number of appointments in the office of the first mayor. He is convinced: “The Federal Chancellor will also take plenty of time on Friday to answer the committee’s questions and thus further advance the investigation in the PUA Cum-Ex.”
