The dispute broke out on Tuesday and the situation did not calm down on Wednesday either. It’s about “trickery”, at least that’s what the SPD and FDP of the CSU parliamentary group make. Specifically, it is about the question of which party gets which chair in the two investigative committees that the state parliament is to decide soon: firstly, on the cost explosion in the second Munich S-Bahn trunk line, secondly on the controversial lease of the Nuremberg Museum of the Future.
The CSU would like to have the leading role in the underground committee on the museum, but the opposition does not like this idea at all. The Future Museum case is “very dangerous for Markus Söder,” says SPD faction leader Florian von Brunn about the CSU leader and prime minister, whom the opposition sees as the driver of the museum project. In order to protect Söder, the CSU would rather have the threads in their own hands, that’s Brunn’s theory. Nonsense, says Tobias Reiß (CSU). He has “no understanding” for “prejudices and insinuations”.
Anyone who wants to understand the anger of the SPD and FDP must know that the two factions had assumed until Tuesday that the chief roles in the U-committees had been decided. Together with the Greens, the SPD and FDP were planning to use the Council of Elders to first put the sub-committee on the main route on the state parliament’s agenda – knowing about the regulations that stipulate that the CSU should chair the committee that was first voted by the state parliament is decided. But on Tuesday, in an informal round of the Council of Elders, the CSU suddenly blocked – and insisted on first voting on the committee on the museum. On Wednesday, the CSU then prevailed with this order, together with the votes of the Free Voters – and against the votes of the Greens, SPD and FDP.
The anger in the ranks of the opposition is correspondingly great. The CSU is apparently “very afraid” of the committee on the Nuremberg Museum, says FDP MP Sebastian Körber. CSU man Reiß pushes back, attesting to Körber’s “snooty hubris”. Reiß had already emphasized on Tuesday that the actions of the CSU had purely “pragmatic reasons”. In his parliamentary group, MP Josef Schmid is considered the ideal candidate for both committees because of his expertise as a specialist lawyer for public building law. But Schmid is out of the question for the committee on the main route, because he was involved in it in his previous position as mayor of Munich, says Reiß. That’s why it was suggested to reverse the order of voting.
So while the SPD and FDP are now frothing and want to discuss how to deal with the maneuvers of the CSU, the Greens do not want to take part in the Zoff. They resist the skirmish so demonstratively that SPD faction leader Brunn warns that “the image of a fabric softener opposition” could emerge that allows the CSU to get away with everything. “You can’t get any further with quarrels,” says Jürgen Mistol (Greens). It is important that the committees are decided quickly, as planned next Wednesday. Whether it really happens that way will depend on how the Zoff goes on.