A check for a good cause for 800,000 euros with the logo of the CSU parliamentary group – a great thing. Except that it was tax money and it hadn’t even been approved by the state parliament.
The saying is justified: “Do good and talk about it!” The Free State of Bavaria supports innovative projects at the University Hospital Erlangen with 800,000 euros, for example chronic diseases. So it is legitimate to announce that, but the circumstances raised questions in the opposition. Bernd Seidenath, CSU MP and head of the Health Committee, handed over a huge symbolic check in Erlangen at the end of March. Clearly printed on it: the logo of the CSU in the state parliament and the signature of the parliamentary group leader Thomas Kreuzer. huh That’s what they promptly asked themselves at the SPD. On the one hand, the check was issued before the state parliament had released the funds. On the other hand, the SPD health politician Ruth Waldmann believed: Tax money is being spent here as a CSU donation – that is “at least an attempt to mislead the public”, a mixture of state and party. Waldmann also wrote a letter to Ilse Aigner (CSU), President of the Landtag, with the snide request: If everything is correct, then she also wants to distribute state funds herself. Then with the SPD logo, of course.
The sum comes from the “group initiatives” with which the CSU and FW are allowed to set their own accents on the budget, “to round off the government draft”, as it is said; often fragmented, from research to monument protection. “The fact is, the state budget sets priorities for seriously ill patients. We make it clear that it happened at the instigation of the CSU parliamentary group,” CSU man Seidenath defended the action in BR after initial criticism; maybe, he said, the symbol check didn’t really have to be there.
The state parliament office, on the other hand, is skeptical when asked by SZ: An actual flow of money from the budget can only take place after the budget has been passed by the state parliament – and the funds “are not then handed over by individual parliamentary groups, but are paid out by the agency managing the funds (state government). “. It was “clearly a PR campaign by the CSU parliamentary group”. On Wednesday, the CSU is said to have been reprimanded in a non-public meeting of the Council of Elders, especially by the FDP and SPD. Group leader Kreuzer is said to have described the case as “unfortunate” – something like that will never happen again.