The pizza, jokes Fabian Mehring, was the “game changer” that steered everything peacefully on Monday evening, twelve hours after the start of the negotiations in Hall 2 of the state parliament. “Thank you SPD,” wrote the Parliamentary Manager of the Free Voters on Instagram, the Socialists had donated the pizzas, ten pieces, Margherita, Funghi, Salami. Just two hours after the pizza delivery, around 9 p.m., the news came: the CSU, the Greens, SPD and FDP agreed on the catalog of questions for a new committee of inquiry to examine the controversial rental agreement for the Museum of the Future in Nuremberg. You now have “a solid basis” for the U-Committee, says Mehring, who saw his FW as a mediator between the other factions.
Not everyone had expected an agreement, and the fronts were still tough on Friday. So hard that the SPD had considered a lawsuit. If the CSU parliamentary group continues to try to “prevent” the clarification of the role of Prime Minister and party leader Markus Söder, they see “going to the Constitutional Court as an option,” threatened SPD parliamentary group leader Florian von Brunn.
The background: In the catalog proposed by the SPD, Greens and FDP, there were four questions about party donations by Nuremberg entrepreneur Gerd Schmelzer to the CSU – and Söder’s knowledge of them. In contrast to the opposition, the CSU considered these questions to be at least partially unconstitutional – and did not want to agree to the catalogue. “Coherences are constructed that don’t exist,” complained Tobias Reiß, parliamentary manager of the CSU parliamentary group. SPD faction leader Brunn meanwhile spoke of “panic fear” in the CSU.
The future museum was decided in 2014, at that time Markus Söder was still Minister of Finance – and was committed to the project in his hometown of Nuremberg. The Supreme Court of Auditors (ORH) now classifies the contract, which guarantees the landlord an annual sum of 2.8 million euros until 2044, as “landlord-friendly” – and the Greens, SPD and FDP sense a scandal. Because the landlord is that Gerd Schmelzer who donated to the CSU. His donations are “a central point” in the U-Committee, if you consider “the vehemence with which Markus Söder campaigned for this investor,” says SPD parliamentary group leader Brunn.
The original catalog of questions mentioned a total of 90,500 euros, which one of Schmelzer’s companies donated in 2018 and 2019. The fact that the opposition suggested asking whether Söder knew about these donations obviously went too far for the CSU. The same applies to the question of whether, in addition to Schmelzer or his companies, his family members have donated. In the catalog on which the parties to the dispute have now agreed – after long negotiations on Saturday, Sunday and Monday – possible donations from Schmelzer’s family environment no longer play a role, and the name Söder was removed from the donation passage, which only contains two key points includes.
The questions are now, somewhat reduced, whether there were donations from “Mr. Gerhard Schmelzer or his company” to the CSU and, more generally, whether “members of the state government were aware of it”.
The second sub-committee deals with the second Munich S-Bahn trunk line
The original version “brimmed with insinuations and prejudices,” says CSU Managing Director Reiß. His parliamentary group is “interested in transparency and enlightenment, but not in a political spectacle in which the outcome should be certain from the outset.” Now Reiß sounds quite happy with the compromise.
SPD faction leader Brunn is also relieved, for him “the U-committee would not have made any real sense” without the questions about the donations. The extent to which the CSU “blocked” it “shows very clearly that they are very afraid and see a great risk”. Schmelzer and the CSU, on the other hand, have always denied any connection between the donations and the rental agreement for the Future Museum.
In addition to the underground committee on the museum, the CSU and FW have agreed on another committee with the applicants Green, SPD and FDP: on the cost explosion for the second Munich S-Bahn trunk line. There had also been disputes about the chairmanship of both bodies. It has been clear since Monday evening: CSU MP Josef Schmid will head the Nuremberg Museum committee, FW MP Bernhard Pohl will be chairman of the main route committee. SPD and FDP would have liked to have had it the other way around.
This Wednesday, the state parliament is to officially set up the two sub-committees. According to reports, the first meetings could take place by the end of the week.