Tag: Friedrich Merz

Angela Merkel receives Germany’s highest honor

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BERLIN — Former Chancellor Angela Merkel received Germany’s highest federal decoration on Monday, an honor bestowed on only two other former leaders before her, though some within her own party questioned whether her legacy matches up.
Merkel, who led the country for over 16 years as one of its longest-serving chancellors, received the top Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her former vice chancellor and foreign minister.
Steinmeier praised Merkel as an “unprecedented politician” who successfully steered Germany through difficult times, including the 2008 financial meltdown and the 2015 refugee crisis.
“You have helped our country achieve economic success anew under unprecedented challenges. We look back on 16 years of almost uninterrupted economic growth, during which the scourge of unemployment increasingly lost its horror for most Germans,” Steinmeier said. “At a time when our continent threatened to break apart, you held together the center and the periphery, the north and the south, the east and the west.”
While Steinmeier spoke for half an hour, Merkel kept her acceptance speech to a much shorter 5 minutes.
“I just want to say thank you for having me here today because it has something to do with your decision,” Merkel told Steinmeier. “In that sense, the people who are being introduced now represent not just tonight, but they represent that a whole lot of people are part of being chancellor for 16 years,” she added.
“People often talk about what a snake pit politics is. I may say I wouldn’t have survived it if there wasn’t the other side of politics. And that’s why I’ve always been able to enjoy it.”
The two other chancellors who received this honor were Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first post-war chancellor, and Helmut Kohl, who oversaw the end of the Cold War, as well as German reunification and the creation of the European Union.

Some within Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU political family took issue with Merkel joining the ranks of the two fellow Christian Democrats so soon after her leadership ended in December 2021, especially amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which some have blamed in part on her soft approach toward Moscow.
“I think it’s a mistake to award Angela Merkel this Grand Cross now, a year and a half after the end of her term,” Andreas Rödder, head of the CDU’s so-called Fundamental Values Commission, told broadcaster ZDF. He added that Merkel’s stance toward Russia has been called one of the country’s worst foreign policy mistakes, and also criticized her energy, migration and nuclear phase-out policies.
Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s longtime finance minister and ally in the CDU, also previously told the Handelsblatt newspaper that it was too early to make a final assessment of whether Merkel should be ranked among the “great” chancellors.
Still, others defended Merkel, including Peter Altmaier, her former chief of staff and later economy minister. Altmaier told broadcaster RTL that “I was pleased to see Angela Merkel receive the award because she has worked with all her might in German politics over the past 30 years,” adding that “whoever does politics also makes mistakes.”
Monday’s ceremony had a small audience of about 20 guests, including Merkel’s successor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who each held Cabinet positions under Merkel. As Stern magazine first reported, no one from the current CDU leadership, including party leader Friedrich Merz, nor from the CSU or liberal FDP had been invited.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 17, 2023
Angela Merkel receives Germany’s highest honor

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BERLIN — Former Chancellor Angela Merkel received Germany’s highest federal decoration on Monday, an honor bestowed on only two other former leaders before her, though some within her own party questioned whether her legacy matches up.
Merkel, who led the country for over 16 years as one of its longest-serving chancellors, received the top Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her former vice chancellor and foreign minister.
Steinmeier praised Merkel as an “unprecedented politician” who successfully steered Germany through difficult times, including the 2008 financial meltdown and the 2015 refugee crisis.
“You have helped our country achieve economic success anew under unprecedented challenges. We look back on 16 years of almost uninterrupted economic growth, during which the scourge of unemployment increasingly lost its horror for most Germans,” Steinmeier said. “At a time when our continent threatened to break apart, you held together the center and the periphery, the north and the south, the east and the west.”
While Steinmeier spoke for half an hour, Merkel kept her acceptance speech to a much shorter 5 minutes.
“I just want to say thank you for having me here today because it has something to do with your decision,” Merkel told Steinmeier. “In that sense, the people who are being introduced now represent not just tonight, but they represent that a whole lot of people are part of being chancellor for 16 years,” she added.
“People often talk about what a snake pit politics is. I may say I wouldn’t have survived it if there wasn’t the other side of politics. And that’s why I’ve always been able to enjoy it.”
The two other chancellors who received this honor were Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first post-war chancellor, and Helmut Kohl, who oversaw the end of the Cold War, as well as German reunification and the creation of the European Union.

Some within Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU political family took issue with Merkel joining the ranks of the two fellow Christian Democrats so soon after her leadership ended in December 2021, especially amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which some have blamed in part on her soft approach toward Moscow.
“I think it’s a mistake to award Angela Merkel this Grand Cross now, a year and a half after the end of her term,” Andreas Rödder, head of the CDU’s so-called Fundamental Values Commission, told broadcaster ZDF. He added that Merkel’s stance toward Russia has been called one of the country’s worst foreign policy mistakes, and also criticized her energy, migration and nuclear phase-out policies.
Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s longtime finance minister and ally in the CDU, also previously told the Handelsblatt newspaper that it was too early to make a final assessment of whether Merkel should be ranked among the “great” chancellors.
Still, others defended Merkel, including Peter Altmaier, her former chief of staff and later economy minister. Altmaier told broadcaster RTL that “I was pleased to see Angela Merkel receive the award because she has worked with all her might in German politics over the past 30 years,” adding that “whoever does politics also makes mistakes.”
Monday’s ceremony had a small audience of about 20 guests, including Merkel’s successor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who each held Cabinet positions under Merkel. As Stern magazine first reported, no one from the current CDU leadership, including party leader Friedrich Merz, nor from the CSU or liberal FDP had been invited.

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#Angela #Merkel #receives #Germanys #highest #honor
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 17, 2023
Olaf Scholz faces new probe over German tax fraud scandal

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BERLIN — Germany’s center-right opposition wants to raise the heat on Chancellor Olaf Scholz by launching a parliamentary investigation into his alleged connection to a massive tax evasion scandal.
The case — which dates back over five years to the time when Scholz was still mayor of the Hamburg city-state — is linked to the broader so-called “Cum Ex” affair, under which the German state was defrauded by over €30 billion as some banks, companies, or individuals claimed tax reimbursements from authorities for alleged costs that never occurred.
The scandal already hung over the Social Democratic politician’s election campaign in 2021 but had little impact in the end as Scholz’s potential involvement remained unclear. Now it is heating up again after new details emerged that put his previous defense in question.

The Hamburg regional parliament plans to summon Scholz this spring — which will be for the third time — to an investigative committee looking into the scandal. And now the center-right CDU/CSU bloc also wants to set up an inquiry at the national level in the Bundestag.
“We will request a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Scholz-Warburg tax affair in the German Bundestag in the first parliamentary week after the Easter vacations,” said the CDU’s Mathias Middelberg, deputy parliamentary group chairman, on Tuesday.
A government spokesperson said that “as a matter of principle,” Berlin does not comment on decisions announced by Bundestag members “out of respect for the constitutional body,” according to media reports.
Katja Mast, the Social Democrats’ chief whip, said the CDU/CSU is not following any interest in knowledge, but rather party tactical interests. “They bring up allegations that have long been refuted,” she said, adding that the committee in Hamburg had clarified all questions.
The CDU/CSU group has enough votes in parliament to be able to set up an investigative committee. The Left party also said it would back such a request. Parliamentary investigative committees can hear witnesses and experts and request access to documents. Although the findings are summarized in a non-binding report, the political consequences, such as for upcoming elections, could be significant.
In a letter to the CDU/CSU parliamentary group seen by POLITICO, chairmen Friedrich Merz and Alexander Dobrindt said that the case should be investigated due to its “significant” importance for German national politics.
Scholz has come under scrutiny because of his links to one Hamburg-based bank involved in the tax evasion scheme: During his time as mayor, he met on three separate occasions in private with one of the owners of the M.M. Warburg & Co. bank, which was already under investigation at the time by the Hamburg tax office. Officials were planning to reclaim €47 million, which they believed were ill-gotten gains in connection with the fraud.
However, in the end, the finance authority let the statute of limitations on the payment demand expire — and years later, after details of Scholz’s meetings with the banker emerged, critics began questioning whether the top Social Democrat might have intervened in favor of the bank.
Although the chancellor has constantly denied having intervened, he has also given no answer on what was discussed during the private meetings. Instead, Scholz said on several occasions during the past two-and-a-half years that he cannot remember the content of the discussions.
During his time as mayor of the Hamburg city-state, Scholz met with one of the owners of the M.M. Warburg & Co. Bank, involved in a tax evasion scheme | Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images
That defense is now being called into question as details emerged of a previous and longtime confidential Bundestag committee hearing with Scholz in July 2020, in which he appeared to easily remember details of his meetings with the banker. His critics argue that Scholz only started to claim having no memory of the meetings when their political and possibly criminal explosiveness became clear.
“This comprehensive memory gap of the chancellor after an initial memory of a concrete meeting … raises a multitude of questions to be clarified,” the letter from the CDU/CSU states.
Scholz and his allies have repeatedly rejected such criticism as politically motivated and stressed that past investigations found no wrongdoing. Scholz also highlighted that in the end, the bank did repay the €47 million, albeit only after it was ordered to do so by a court. The Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office said in March that it does not see any initial suspicion against the chancellor in the affair.
That hasn’t discouraged the opposition from planning to dig deeper, though.
“The chancellor would like to see … a line drawn under the clarification of this tax affair. But it is precisely the task of parliament to control the government, to look closely, especially with so many unanswered questions,” said CDU lawmaker Matthias Hauer.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 4, 2023