“Mallorca Affair”
“Ironically meant gesture”: CDU minister shows SPD colleagues the finger
Holthoff gatekeeper in Parliament. At the airport, he gave his colleague the finger.
© Malte Ossowski/SVEN SIMON/ / Picture Alliance
The so-called “Mallorca affair” surrounding the resigned NRW Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU) continues to be a topic of conversation. A dispute between NRW Minister Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner and an SPD MP ended ugly.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Europe Minister Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner (CDU) caught the eye with a derailment at Berlin Airport: after an argument with Duisburg SPD member of the Bundestag Mahmut Özdemir (SPD), he gave him the finger in public. The minister confirmed the incident on Saturday to the German Press Agency.
Mallorca affair: Several ministers traveled to Mallorca to celebrate during the flood disaster
The cause of the incident was the so-called “Mallorca affair” surrounding the resigned NRW Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU). Shortly after the flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Heinen-Esser and other ministers took an extended vacation to Mallorca and celebrated the birthday of Heinen-Esser’s husband there, among other things. In addition to Heinen-Esser, Stinkefinger-Zeiger Holthoff-Pförtner, Minister of Construction Ina Scharrenbach (CDU) and then State Secretary Serap Güler (CDU) also traveled to Mallorca.
At the airport, Özedemir – parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior – asked Holthoff-Pförtner after boarding whether he was on the right plane. This goes to Düsseldorf, not to Mallorca. Enough for Holthoff-Pförtner to give his colleague the finger.
Holthoff-Pförtner shows colleagues the stinky finger: “Ironically meant gesture”
In the meantime, Holthoff-Pförtner rowed back at the request of the German Press Agency: “Anyone who knows me knows that I would never mean that in an insulting way. I understood the teasing as fun among colleagues and reacted just as jokingly.” Nevertheless, he later realized that the middle finger gesture was “extremely misleading” for outsiders who had not heard the dialogue before, the 73-year-old from Essen admitted.
“That’s why I contacted Mahmut Özdemir personally on Saturday morning and assured him that I didn’t want to offend or insult him. He in turn assured me that he also understood my ironic gesture as a harmless exchange of blows.” Özdemir could not initially be reached for comment.