What role does Olaf Scholz play in the Cum-Ex affair? For the second time, the Chancellor has to face the questions of an investigative committee of the Hamburg Parliament. Shortly before the eagerly awaited meeting, the criticism of the head of government is getting louder.
In view of the demands for his resignation and the many voices calling for answers to open questions, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected a second time this Friday before the Cum-Ex Committee of the Hamburg Parliament. As a witness, he is supposed to help clarify the question of whether he or other leading SPD politicians influenced the tax treatment of the Warburg Bank involved in the Cum-Ex scandal. Scholz denies this.
The chancellor's second appearance was originally planned as the conclusion of the parliamentary committee of inquiry. The disclosure of the results of the investigation by the Cologne public prosecutor's office, which is investigating the Warburg Bank's cum-ex transactions, and press reports on previously kept secret minutes of a statement by Scholz in 2020 before the Bundestag's finance committee, however, have given rise to many new questions. The CDU and the left in the citizenship now want to expand the investigation and invite Scholz a third time.
In view of the new findings, the chairman of the CDU in the committee, Richard Seelmaecker, called for the resignation of Scholz and his successor as mayor, Peter Tschentscher. In 2016, both had political influence on the treatment of the Warburg Bank, which was involved in the Cum-Ex affair, in order to protect the financial institution from high tax reclaims, he told the "Spiegel". Also in an interview with ntv.de, Seelmaecker said: "It all stinks to high heaven and cannot have happened without political influence."
The background to this is Scholz's meetings with the bank's shareholders, Christian Olearius and Max Warburg, in 2016 and 2017. According to Olearius, after the first meeting in the town hall, Scholz recommended that the bankers send a letter to Tschentscher in which the bank requested the repayment of EUR 47 million wrongly reimbursed capital gains tax as unjustified. Tschentscher had forwarded the letter with the "request for information on the situation" to the tax authorities, where, contrary to original plans, they decided a short time later to let the claim run into the statute of limitations. A claim for 43 million euros was raised a year later, shortly before the statute of limitations expired, and on the instructions of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Tschentscher had confirmed the forwarding of the letter to the committee. However, he described the allegation of influence as "unfounded". Scholz, who acknowledged the meetings with the bankers but says he can no longer remember the content of the talks, also denies any influence.
The fact that these memory gaps are fake is also clear from the minutes published by “Stern” of a meeting of the Bundestag Finance Committee that was classified as secret, according to which Scholz admitted to a meeting with the Warburg shareholders in July 2020, but downplayed its importance, said Seelmaecker . "And with us on the committee, he suddenly couldn't remember it."
Hamburg's CDU leader Christoph Ploß told the newspapers of the Funke media group: "It stinks to high heaven if Olaf Scholz is said to be unable to remember anything." The deputy leader of the Union in the Bundestag, Mathias Middelberg, called Scholz's memory gaps "increasingly unbelievable" in view of numerous incriminating facts. "Scholz' strategy of not knowing anything and not remembering anything is already a burden for a chancellor who otherwise wants to appear knowledgeable and confident," he told the "Rheinische Post". He also did not rule out inviting Scholz to the federal finance committee.
Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch spoke in the same paper of a "cloud of mistrust over the Chancellor, which the public can no longer reasonably be expected to accept and which is damaging the office". Scholz must make his role transparent to the committee. "Olaf Scholz should take the opportunity to finally clarify things," said Bartsch. If he doesn't take the opportunity again, "that would have to entail further investigations".
Former left-wing member of the Bundestag Fabio de Masi also considers Scholz's memory gaps to be implausible. "The Federal Chancellor is involved," said financial expert Ippen Media. The financial expert at the anti-corruption organization Transparency International, Stephan Klaus Ohme, described Scholz's portrayal as "simply implausible". "The chancellor is a proven expert on these issues, he knew the importance of waiving the Warburg Bank tax liability from cum-ex transactions in the millions," Ohme told the Funke newspapers.
The Chancellor received support from his finance minister, Christian Lindner, who expressed his "full confidence" in him in the "Rheinische Post". "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," said the FDP leader.
Scholz had already put a damper on his statement last week at his summer press conference, which was too high. "There is no evidence that there was any political influence," he said, referring to extensive investigations over the past two and a half years. "I am sure that this realization will not be changed."
