People abroad sometimes wonder about the transgressions that German politicians come under criticism for: sometimes careless footnotes are enough, or, even more delicately, a trip at the wrong moment. The latest target of holiday malice is Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who recently went to Mallorca to spend part of his autumn holidays with her eight-year-old son. The PictureThe newspaper now shows her with a stack of towels and the headline: “Germany is going down the drain, Faeser is going swimming.”
The tabloid is experienced with stories of this kind. In the fall of 2015, it hit the then Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU): While Germany was “in the middle of refugee chaos,” he was recovering in Mallorca. This was “instinctual,” the newspaper commented. It was known that de Maizière wanted to cure the flu.
De Maizière recovered from both the flu and the boulevard, but for others, holidays in Mallorca were fatal. In 2002, Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping (SPD) was thrown out of the cabinet because he had previously made himself a laughing stock with, among other things, the “Mallorca affair”: While the Bundeswehr tried to pacify Kosovo, Scharping, with excessive vanity, allowed himself to be ignored Colorful taking photos while splashing around with his girlfriend.
Around 20 years later, Family Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens) also lost her job: in her previous position as Environment Minister in Rhineland-Palatinate, critics believed she had not paid enough attention to the victims of the flood in the Ahr Valley and was in one shortly after the disaster went on vacation for several weeks. Spiegel tried to justify this by saying that her husband was ill and the family was burdened by Corona, among other things. But because Spiegel repeatedly gave the impression that she wasn’t telling the truth, she ultimately had to leave. At around the same time, NRW Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser had to resign because of a “Mallorca affair”; She, too, was away after the Ahr Valley disaster.
Before her vacation, Nancy Faeser tried to balance her duties as Interior Minister and an election campaign in Hesse.
(Photo: Andreas Arnold/dpa)
Is it offensive when the Interior Minister relaxes in Mallorca – and is there even a right moment for that? Faeser has certainly not been lucky recently. She had to apologize for staying away from the Interior Committee when it wanted to question her. In general, her election campaign in Hesse seemed to affect her duties as Interior Minister. And she is now more in demand than ever as a public figure, as the issue of migration concerns so many people and there is violence at pro-Palestinian demonstrations and attacks on Jewish institutions.
But it is precisely because of all these stresses that even “top politicians” might need a break for themselves and their families. The German pool affairs reveal real Scharpingian missteps, but sometimes just the malice of those who like to go on vacation themselves but don’t allow others to do so. In any case, Faeser is expected in the cabinet this Wednesday to present new rules for faster deportations.