Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) gave Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) his back before he was questioned again in the Hamburg investigative committee on the so-called Cum-Ex scandal. “The Chancellor has our full confidence,” Lindner told Düsseldorf’s “Rheinische Post” on Friday. “I have always perceived Olaf Scholz – whether in the opposition or now in the government – as a person of integrity and there is no reason to doubt it.”
On Friday, Scholz will be questioned again as a witness in an investigative committee of the Hamburg Parliament in the affair surrounding the Warburg Bank, which was involved in the Cum-Ex scandal. The committee is investigating the question of whether political influence was involved when the Hamburg tax authorities waived a repayment of 47 million euros from the Warburg Bank in 2016.
Scholz was the first mayor of the Hanseatic city at the time. The investigative committee has been working since the end of 2020 and interviewed numerous witnesses. Scholz had previously testified before the panel.
Before Scholz was questioned again, Hamburg’s CDU leader Christoph Ploß demanded clear statements from the chancellor about his role in the financial scandal. “It stinks to high heaven if Olaf Scholz can’t remember anything now,” Ploß told the newspapers of the Funke media group on Friday. “We finally need clarity as to the extent to which the SPD has benefited from the Cum-Ex affair.” In addition to Scholz, Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) must “finally contribute to the clarification”.
The chairman of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Dietmar Bartsch, also sees Scholz as having a duty. “We need clarity instead of questionable gaps in memory,” Bartsch told the Funke newspapers. “As an upright Hanseatic, Scholz should ‘give butter to the fish’ and finally put an end to it.”
The vice-chairman of the Union parliamentary group, Mathias Middelberg (CDU), told the “Rheinische Post” that the indications “that there was manipulation in Hamburg” were currently “massively” condensing. “Olaf Scholz’s memory gaps seem more and more unbelievable in view of the numerous incriminating facts that are known from his environment.”
“Scholz’s strategy of not knowing anything and not remembering anything is already a burden for a chancellor who otherwise wants to appear knowledgeable and confident,” Middelberg continued. “In addition, there is the risk for him that people who are already under investigation will unpack during the interrogations.”
Recently, the scandal surrounding cum-ex payments, which has been known for years, has made waves again. It is also and especially about the role of Scholz.
So-called cum-ex deals refer to moving shares around a dividend record date in order to get a refund of capital gains tax that was not paid. The state lost billions as a result of these practices by banks.
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