Mask scandal: wave already reaches government - Söder fears “lobby election campaign”, Merkel also speaks out

The lobby fear is rampant: The Union is now thinking of new laws.

Meanwhile, Markus Söder issued a warning - and the federal government was also targeted.

Berlin / Munich - New cases of dubious lobbying behavior are piling up at the Union almost every day - and that just before the state elections in Baden-Württemberg * and Rhineland-Palatinate *.

The party is rowing violently when attempting to limit the damage: On Friday, the Union submitted a proposal for stricter lobby regulations to the SPD in the Bundestag.

Merkur.de

* had already reported on the new talks between the coalition partners on Wednesday.

CSU boss Markus Söder meanwhile wants to declare the mask affair a no-go in the election campaign.

Mask affair: Söder fears lobby election campaign - "Must not happen"

While the Union and the SPD presented various lobby proposals in the Bundestag, Söder warned against using the mask affair for the election campaign.

"It must not happen that an attempt is made to turn it into an election campaign from other bodies," said the Bavarian Prime Minister on Friday in Nuremberg.

The CDU and CSU had taken the necessary steps quickly and consistently, he said.

“It is undisputed that there was an overall damage, a major one.” He could not predict whether the recently announced incidents would have consequences for the state elections on Sunday.

Most recently, however, there was a clear dent in the survey - also in the federal government and in Bavaria.

Söder emphasized that it was right that a fundamental debate about the complex subject of lobby registers, parties and donations had arisen as a result of the incidents.

Helping in the crisis is the order of the day for everyone, “but not making money with it”.

It was therefore also important to consistently punish the known, serious cases.

Such behavior is unacceptable and fundamentally revised rules of conduct are needed for the future.

Merkel comments on the CDU's lobby scandal: Chancellor “stands behind parliamentary group” - but Welle already reaches government

And also Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) announced her position on the lobby question on Friday: The Chancellor is fully behind the position of the parliamentary group leadership, "to clarify facts and, where necessary, to draw conclusions," said government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

When asked whether the events in the Union parliamentary group damage the government's reputation and ability to act, he added: "The federal government's ability to act is not affected."

However, the executive is now also affected by explosive lobby reports: The parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, Thomas Bareiß (CDU), has turned to a German medical technology company at the request of the Azerbaijani government that did business with the authoritarian state.

Lobby laws: Union presents “10-point plan” - now also willingness to change the law

Merkur.de *

had already

learned

on Wednesday

that lobby rules would once again become a topic between the SPD and the Union on Friday - on the home stretch of the legislative period.

Previously, the CDU and CSU had once again let the coalition partner accuse the demand for an “executive footprint”, as the SPD negotiator Matthias Bartke reported from the talks *.

Now the sister parties presented their own “10-point plan”, the paper was available to the dpa, among others.

It should apparently start with the law on representatives.

Among other things, the plan provides for a ban on paid activities as a representative of the interests of a third party vis-à-vis the federal government - obviously in response to the Nüßlein and Löbel cases and the repeated scandal about payments from Azerbaijan to CDU members.

"In the future, members of the German Bundestag should state their additional earnings from 100,000 euros to the nearest euro and cents," it said.

Income from company investments should also have to be mentioned.

According to these plans, MPs should also have to indicate if they receive action options in return as part of a secondary activity - as happened in the Amthor case.

The parliamentarians are also to be banned from accepting donations.

Party donations received by MPs and passed on to their party should remain permissible.

The 10-point catalog also stipulates that bribery or corruption of members of parliament should be punished as a crime and no longer as an offense.

The minimum sentence should be increased to one year imprisonment.

An internal group code of conduct is also planned.

"Those who hold outstanding positions in the parliamentary group should not have any additional income in the future," said CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt to

Münchner Merkur

* in an interview *.

Corona masks, Azerbaijan and Co .: SPD is debating its own draft law with the CDU and CSU

The extent to which the GroKo parliamentary groups will agree is still in the stars.

For its part, the SPD already presented a draft for a “law to increase parliamentary transparency and fight against parliamentary corruption” on Friday.

This includes changes to the Law on Political Parties and Members of Parliament.

It is essentially the implementation of a ten-point plan already published by the SPD.

There is agreement on some points: the Social Democrats are also calling for a ban on paid lobbying activities in addition to the mandate.

In addition, they want a ban on accepting donations for MPs and a cent-accurate publication of additional income.

The scope of secondary employment should have to be specified, as well as stock options and company holdings from 5 percent of the voting rights - not only from 25 percent as today.

Here, too, there is reasonable hope for an agreement.

Party donations should be limited to a maximum of 100,000 euros per donor per year.

The publication requirement for donations is to be reduced from 10,000 euros to 2000 euros.

The comrades also want to resort to more draconian punishments: there are also plans to classify bribery and corruption of elected officials as a crime in the future.

The sentence is to be increased to one to ten years imprisonment.

(

dpa / fn

)

List of rubric lists: © Christian Spicker / imago-images