Because there is a dispute about the list of questions for the planned committee of inquiry into the Nuremberg Future Museum, the SPD is considering filing a lawsuit against the CSU. If the CSU parliamentary group continues to try to “prevent” the clarification of the role of Prime Minister and party leader Markus Söder, one sees “a visit to the Constitutional Court as an option,” said SPD parliamentary group leader Florian von Brunn on Friday Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The background: In the catalog formulated by the SPD, Greens and FDP, there are several questions about party donations by the Nuremberg entrepreneur Gerd Schmelzer to the CSU. The point of contention: In contrast to the opposition, the CSU considers these questions to be constitutionally inadmissible.
In the sub-committee, which could be decided in the state parliament next week, the opposition wants to find out whether there is a connection between Schmelzer’s party donations to the CSU and the rental conditions that the Free State has granted the entrepreneur. Schmelzer owns the Augustinerhof, where the museum is located, and the lease guarantees him annual rent of 2.8 million euros until 2044, which the Free State will pay. The Supreme Court of Auditors (ORH) classifies the lease as “landlord-friendly” and the costs as “high overall”. The state parliament opposition sees Söder, who was finance minister at the time of the rental deal, as the driver of the museum project and senses a “real estate scandal”, hence the planned sub-committee.
The questionnaire mentions a total of 90,500 euros that one of Schmelzer’s companies donated to the CSU in 2018 and 2019. The opposition wants to know when exactly these donations went to which party branch and whether there were other, previously unknown donations from Schmelzer’s environment.
The Nuremberg News the entrepreneur said in April 2021 that he keeps donating to parties, that this is part of the “democratic process”. Schmelzer and the CSU have denied any connection with the rental agreement for the Museum of the Future. “Coherences are constructed that do not exist,” assures Tobias Reiss, parliamentary manager of the CSU parliamentary group. Reiß said on Friday about the opposition’s questions about the donations: “It’s important to me that we have a clean, legally compliant catalogue.” According to the party law, the CSU apparently sees no obligation to provide information.
The FDP MP Sebastian Körber also emphasized the “open questions” about Schmelzer’s donations. When asked whether his parliamentary group could also imagine a lawsuit against the CSU, Körber answered: “Bringing light into the dark field around the topic of donations is an indispensable part of the questions in the sub-committee.”