The traffic light coalition prevents a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Hamburg Warburg affair and Olaf Scholz’s role in the tax scandal. In a letter to the Union faction, the coalition rejected the opposition’s request on Monday. In essence, she accuses the Union of violating the rights of the state of Hamburg and exceeding the competences of the Bundestag with the questions formulated before her for the committee. According to the letter, the investigation must “basically relate to the actions of the federal government”. This was also the result of an expert hearing, in which the vast majority of experts shared the position of the traffic light groups.
“The constitutionally impermissible direction of your application is not to examine the actions of the federal government, but processes at the state level, which most experts believe is not permissible in the context of the tax administration,” says the letter from the traffic light groups. It is recognized that the Union has submitted changes to individual questions. However, the proposed changes do not go far enough, so that most of the questions remain “unconstitutional”.
“The traffic light’s arguments are not convincing,” says the Union
The Union also wants to investigate the role of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in the Warburg affair during his time as the first mayor of Hamburg. Scholz had met the then Warburg boss Christian Olearius three times, who wanted political support given his problems with the tax office. At the end of 2016, the Hamburg tax office initially waived a tax reclaim of 47 million euros against the bank. However, this was later asserted.
The establishment of a committee of inquiry is a minority right enshrined in the Basic Law. The Union also has the necessary number of votes of at least 25 percent of the deputies. The minority rights are “of the highest relevance for us,” says the letter from the traffic light groups. So we tried hard to find a solution.
However, the union denies this. “The rejection of our application is a so far unique, dangerous disregard of a constitutionally guaranteed minority right,” said the deputy chairman of the Union faction, Mathias Middelberg Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The traffic light arguments are not convincing. If one followed this argument, there should never have been investigative committees such as those on Anis Amri, NSU or Gorleben in the Bundestag.” “Federal and state interests are affected” on many issues. The “efficient examination of the facts” must “make a concentrated examination possible even in such cases”. Against the rejection of the application one would therefore “immediately appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court”.
Green trigger irritation
Parliament’s Rules of Procedure Committee must first discuss the Union faction’s application for the establishment of a committee of inquiry, and the entire Bundestag will then make the final decision. The Rules Committee met on Monday evening. However, there was no vote there. The Greens reported a need for advice again. The committee therefore adjourned to Tuesday. The parliamentary manager of the Union faction, Patrick Schnieder, criticized the postponement as “objectively incomprehensible”. In addition, it is “incomprehensible” that the same Greens MP who wrote the letter to the Union together with colleagues from the other two traffic light groups reported to the committee that they needed advice. This indicates “that here too there is chaos and disagreement at the traffic lights”.