Before the election, SPD chancellor candidate Scholz could be quoted in the Bundestag’s finance committee, it is about investigations against a special customs unit. Scholz’s reaction to searches by investigators is also criticized.
Two weeks before the election, SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz comes under pressure after a raid on the Ministry of Finance in connection with investigations against the customs special unit FIU. Greens, FDP and Left request a special meeting of the finance committee. Scholz should contribute to the “comprehensive clarification of the processes” there before the election, explained the representatives Lisa Paus (Greens), Stefan Liebich (Left) and Markus Herbrand (FDP) on Friday to the German Press Agency. Union politicians in particular attacked Scholz for how he had reacted to the search in his ministry.
The representatives of the Greens, the FDP and the Left announced that a letter from the relevant parliamentary management board would be sent to the President of the Bundestag as soon as possible regarding the application for a special meeting of the finance committee. The reason is the current events around the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the searches in the Federal Ministry of Finance and Justice in this context.
Federal Ministry of Finance and Justice searched
The integrity of the fight against money laundering in Germany threatens to be in question and thus an important part of the fight against organized crime and terrorism. This requires prompt action and a referral to the committee before the federal election on September 26th, it said: “We would like to invite Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who has overall political responsibility for the ongoing grievances at the FIU, to take a stand and to provide a comprehensive explanation of the operations. “.
In investigations against those in charge of the FIU, a special money laundering unit of the customs, the Osnabrück public prosecutor had the Federal Ministry of Finance and Justice searched on Thursday. Documents were also confiscated, as the public prosecutor announced. Since last year, the public prosecutors have been investigating a suspicion of thwarting punishment in office by the FIU. The central office, which is part of the Ministry of Finance, is said to have not passed on information from banks about money laundering to the police and the judiciary.
Scholz speaks of a good cooperation
Statements by Scholz caused massive criticism. He had told the broadcaster Welt that the investigation was directed against unknown employees in Cologne. In this context questions had arisen for the two ministries. This “could have been put in writing,” said Scholz. He continued: “Now they have been posed in a different way. Everyone can judge that for themselves.”
Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet (CDU) said on Friday: “If your own ministry is searched to tell the public prosecutor what it would have done better, you only know from populist states.” CSU boss Markus Söder said at the CSU party congress in Nuremberg that the impression was created that the Federal Finance Minister was almost offended that the public prosecutor was doing its job.
Scholz said on Friday on the sidelines of a meeting of the finance and economics ministers of the euro countries in Slovenia with a view to the public prosecutor’s office that there would be good cooperation, as it should be: “Even if you just get in touch, it would succeed. Now there is cooperation in this way. “
“Germany is seen as a money laundering paradise throughout Europe”
Söder also called for more extensive parliamentary investigations into the so-called cum-ex affair. There are “countless questions, no answers”. This “whole complex” deserves to be examined in parliament in the same way as the toll – there was a committee of inquiry in the Bundestag on the debacle over the car toll. The focus there was Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU).
In the cum-ex scandal, Scholz had recently rejected any suspicion in an investigative committee of the Hamburg citizenship that, as Hamburg mayor, he had influenced the tax treatment of the Warburg Bank involved in the scandal.
Regarding the FIU case, Greens boss Robert Habeck told “Spiegel” that a complete clarification of the processes was needed, until then the presumption of innocence would apply. “But politically one has to state that Germany is a money laundering paradise throughout Europe,” said Habeck. “The efforts of the grand coalition, especially the finance minister, to combat financial crime effectively have evidently not been intense enough in recent years.”
Cum-Ex is also putting Scholz under pressure
The FDP finance politician Florian Toncar told the German press agency: “Scholz’s criticism of the search in the finance ministry is completely wrong. It only shows that the finance minister’s nerves are on edge. No public prosecutor is allowed to search a house like that.” He must have the search approved by an independent judge
Toncar said he could very well understand that prosecutors raided the Treasury. “Even in the Wirecard case, the Ministry of Finance just did not cooperate fully.” In April, as a witness in the Bundestag investigation committee, Scholz had denied any responsibility for the accounting scandal surrounding the former Dax group Wirecard. The opposition saw mistakes mainly in the financial supervision Bafin, for which the Ministry of Finance is responsible.
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