Green politician Piechotta: Spahn’s sharpest adversary

“In the crisis, when it gets hard: Is Jens Spahn one who represents the interests of the citizens?” Asks Paula Piechotta at the lectern in the Bundestag, and adds: “Or reveals?” The sound is set.

And the Greens politician wants to clarify these questions. She is now going back to the budget committee, she says on Wednesday. There, the former Federal Minister of Health, now the Union faction leader, was invited to answer questions about some chaotic mask procurement during pandemic – too many masks were bought, at a relatively high price. The majority of it was not used in the end.

It is a debate that comes very inconvenient to the Union faction leader – which is why he is increasingly annoyed. In the budget committee, Spahn may have had particularly respect (or special resentment against) Paula Piechotta: the politician of the Greens from Saxony, 38 years old, has become his sharpest opponent in the masking affair. The previously rather unknown MP has buried deeply into the details of the mask procurement during the Corona pandemic and drives Spahn with sharp statements in interviews and statements.

Is Spahn still blackmailed through his then concluded delivery contracts with dealers to whom he had private contacts? Piechotta, who sits on the budget committee and as a deputy member of the health committee, repeatedly in the room. And why did Spahn avoid complaining of compensation when there were clear defects in the expensive masks obtained?

This was one of the reasons why Piechotta had loudly demanded that the report of a special investigator who had used Spahn’s successor Karl Lauterbach (SPD) as Minister of Health was made accessible to the MPs – and then outraged by the pages blackened in it. She is happy to provide her contributions to this on social media with the hashtag “Spahnrueckfrezt”.

The doctor from Leipzig, only since the past legislature in the Bundestag, is considered ambitious. When the Greens re -awarded the important items in the parliamentary group a few weeks ago, their name as one of the deputy parliamentary group leader in the meantime – probably alone because the Greens hardly have a person from East Germany in a more prominent role. It turned out differently in the end, but now Piechotta has developed in the masking affair without an important function.

However, the Greens – and with it also Piechotta – are in a tricky location: With their faction, which has shrunk since the past Bundestag election, they do not get enough votes to use a committee of inquiry together with the left faction. This is considered the sharpest sword of the opposition, because it can check grievances and misconduct by hearing witnesses and can be presented.

Because the Greens and the Left cannot use a committee of inquiry, it is currently more like that the topic will soon cool down. To the delight of the Union, which argues that it was an exceptional situation during a pandemic at the time, and which also assumes the special investigator.

Nobody wants to face the Union faction leader in the SPD too. There, the parliamentarians with the report from the Ministry of Health see the necessary transparency. In addition, a so-called Enquete Commission should deal with the time of pandemic.

In the situation, the Greens only have the pressure over the public. Perhaps it can also be explained in this way why Piechotta recently reached a drastic means: she uploaded a short video excerpt from the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) on social media in which he calls for an investigation committee. Piechotta writes: “Söder goes against Spahn. Now a new phase begins.”

But that’s not true. Because Söder talks about an committee of inquiry against the then green Economic Minister Robert Habeck for subsidies for the now bankruptcy battery manufacturer Northvolt. This does not emerge from the video section shortened by Piechotta. An hour after her original posting, the Greens commented on that what Söder can “supposedly” say to Habeck, “far too directly” on Spahn. But Greens also initially assumed that Söder actually opposed Spahn. You can call the disinformation – for the sake of attention.

Piechotta has already spanned the bow, namely when she described Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the SPD as “asshole” in the election campaign. In a podcast, she said at the time: “Everyone in the SPD knows that Olaf Scholz is an asshole.” At first she did not apologize for it that she only reproduced one view of the SPD. Later she did that.

Sometimes her direct way backfire. If such debates grow over her head, she should be very happy when she strips the doctor’s coat in Leipzig: Piechotta works as a radiologist twice a month at the university clinic there. “I never wanted to throw that away, and I also want to stay fit at work,” she said once. “To stay independent internally.”