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Photo: Simon Martinelli
For a long time, the North Macedonian ex-prime minister Nikola Gruevski could rely on his friends from the CSU.
The Bundestag member Tobias Zech from Upper Bavaria proved to be a particularly committed supporter.
In November 2016, the then 35-year-old traveled to Skopje for an election campaign appearance by Gruevski's national conservative party VMRO-DPMNE.
Zech stood on the stage and gave a fiery speech in front of thousands of listeners.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if you vote for this party, if you re-elect Nikola Gruevski, then you are choosing a future course for Macedonia!" The CSU politician called into the microphone.
But Gruevski did not come back to the Macedonian government, but before a criminal court in Skopje.
After being convicted of corruption, the politician fled into exile in Hungary.
Four and a half years after the performance, Zech's engagement in the Balkans raises questions: It is unusual for a German member of the Bundestag to campaign for a controversial politician in Macedonia.
But Zech was not only of service to Gruevski's party politically, but also in business.
According to SPIEGEL research, the then private company of the CSU man, Scaliger Strategy Consulting GmbH, advised the Macedonian VMRO-DPMNE in 2016. For this, the company received consultancy fees in the five-figure range.
Upon request, Zech admits that at the time the company had “an assignment for strategic advice” from the VMRO-DPMNE party.
This service was "provided and paid for in accordance with the contract".
However, he has "strictly separated from the exercise of my mandate at all times," says Zech.
Nonetheless, one day after DER SPIEGEL confronted him with the allegations, he said he would resign.
At an inopportune time, the process becomes public for the Union.
The CDU and CSU are in their greatest crisis since the donation affair twenty years ago.
Since it became known that several Union MPs were involved in questionable business with corona protective masks or were campaigning for the interests of the autocratic Caucasus Republic of Azerbaijan, the parties of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder have crashed in the polls.
An even greater defeat in the elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate was probably only prevented by the fact that many voters had already voted by letter before the scandals.
Raid in the state parliament
The mask affair comes to a head almost every day.
On Wednesday, the State Criminal Police Office in the Bavarian state parliament searched the office of the MP and ex-Justice Minister Alfred Sauter, who has been one of the most influential pullers in the CSU for decades.
The investigators believe that he is involved in the mediation of protective equipment orders by the Bundestag member Georg Nüßlein, they accuse both of bribery, both deny this.
In the case of Sauter, according to a report in the »Süddeutsche Zeitung«, payments amounting to 1.2 million euros should be involved.
The process brings back memories of old-school party finance scandals: According to SPIEGEL information, part of Sauter's alleged proceeds should have flowed through a trustee to the non-profit "Community Foundation Landkreis Günzburg".
On March 8, 470,000 euros were received in a foundation account.
An auditor acted as the sender of the donation, who is conveniently also the treasurer of Sauter's CSU district association and at the same time head of the board of trustees.
The corruption affair is now also being investigated against him for aiding and abetting sales tax evasion, which he denies.
Nevertheless, the donation looked mysterious from the start.
According to the foundation's board of directors, the money was received without a specific purpose. Initially, it was thought to have been donated by a benefactor who wanted to remain anonymous.
Now the foundation wants to check the legality of the donation and decide whether the sum can be accepted.
The question of whether the donation came from him was left unanswered by Sauter at the time of going to press.
Commissions, trustees, anonymous donations: the matter is extremely dangerous for party leader Markus Söder.
The affair was capable of "lasting damage to trust in democracy, but also in the CSU," he said after the raid in the state parliament.
But it is no longer just about dubious mask deals, but about the question of whether the Union has looked the other way for too long, with which its MPs earn money on the side - and sometimes earn more than they get for their actual job: to represent the people.
The Union, which has long resisted further restrictions on additional income, now wants to take tough action.
Bundestag parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU) and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt have announced strict rules in a "ten-point transparency offensive".
A “compliance team” is supposed to monitor compliance.
This is not just met with enthusiasm in the Union.
A group of resistance fighters is formed.
The project is difficult to reconcile with the freedom of a mandate holder, complained one MP.
Another even speaks of a »faction Stasi«, which should now be set up.
The critics do not want to be quoted by name, but at the next group meeting, they announce, they would express their displeasure.
But the case of the outgoing CSU MP Tobias Zech shows how urgently more transparency is needed.
After eight years as a contract soldier and first professional steps at the aviation group Airbus, Zech moved into the Bundestag in 2013, at 32. There he ended up on the Committee for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Soon he also represented the CSU in the Council of Europe.
Zech developed a soft spot for Macedonia, which was striving to join the European Union and NATO.
On site he established contacts with the national conservative VMRO-DPMNE of the then controversial party leader Nikola Gruevski.
After a phase of reforms, he had led the Balkan state on an increasingly autocratic path.
At the beginning of 2016 he had to resign as Prime Minister, the opposition had published recordings of telephone calls in which Gruevski and other government politicians chatted about election fraud, extortion and influencing the media and the judiciary.
Mass protests were the result.
But in the background Gruevski continued to act as a strong man in Macedonia.
He tried to advertise his political future in Western Europe by serving as gatekeeper in the Balkans during the refugee crisis.
In April 2016, the CSU member of the Bundestag Zech, together with a Bavarian party friend, founded the consulting company "Scaliger Strategy Consulting GmbH" in Garching an der Alz.
The company's website later stated that the company had "practical work experience" in both business and politics: "We don't brag about our contacts, we use them to your advantage."
The small company won Gruevski's party as a customer.
According to SPIEGEL research, Zechs companies received payments totaling around 50,000 euros from VMRO-DPMNE accounts by August 2016.
Among other things, the purpose of the transfers was stated as “Public Relations Services”.
Despite massive allegations of abuse of office, Gruevski was still a welcome guest in Germany in autumn 2016 - especially at the CSU.
In September he traveled to Berlin with a delegation from his party and met high-ranking CSU politicians, including Gerd Müller, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation.
On November 16, Gruevski was received by the then CSU boss Horst Seehofer at the party headquarters in Munich.
To what extent the member of the Bundestag Zech or his consulting firm was involved in the organization of these appointments, he left unanswered.
A participant in one of the meetings reported that it came about on Zech's initiative.
The fact is that Zech continued to create public mood for his business partner from the Balkans: In local media he declared that it was "very important and useful" that the chairman of the VMRO-DPMNE had "meetings with friends" in Berlin and Munich.
The fact that Zechs company was a paid contractor for Gruevski's party in 2016 has so far remained hidden from the public.
The company was on Zech's Bundestag website at the time.
But he did not have to disclose which services he performed there for which customers.
Zech emphasizes that in his entire time as a member of parliament he "always complied with all duties to report secondary employment."
For the CSU man, his time in the Bundestag initially ended in autumn 2017 - because of a poor election result for his party, the list candidate did not make it back into parliament.
For Gruevski it got even more bitter: In Macedonia, investigations into corruption, electoral fraud and illegal wiretapping of opposition members were launched.
When he was about to begin a two-year prison sentence in 2018 after a first sentence, he fled to Hungary, where Viktor Orbán granted him political asylum.
In the same year Zech liquidated his "Scaliger Strategy Consulting GmbH", according to his statements "in favor of other entrepreneurial activities".
Zech says that he was "not aware of criminally relevant facts" against Gruevski "before and during the processing of the order."
The international press had been reporting on allegations since 2015.
Zech explains that he found out about Gruevski's conviction from the media "well after the contract was completed" for the Macedonian party.
"Corruption and detention in no way find my approval," says the CSU man.
No one would have been interested in the Macedonian escapades - if Zech had not returned to the Bundestag in May 2020 for a CSU colleague who was leaving.
"Who would have expected it - I never," he told a local newspaper at the time.
Due to the mask affair, the business of all Union MPs is now in focus.
The 39-year-old MP Zech is now the managing director of a management consultancy that offers "elegant solutions" even for the "trickiest" problems.
In September 2019 - before his re-entry into the Bundestag - he also got into a business that one would not immediately associate with a CSU politician: the cultivation of cannabis.
Zech is a board member of PharmCann Deutschland AG, whose business purpose revolves around the »extraction, refinement and development of legal cannabis raw materials«.
One of Zech's business partners is Zlatko Keskovski, former vice-head of the Macedonian secret service UBK and a passionate karate fighter.
On videos on the Internet, he heads a beer bottle with the edge of his hand and cuts a pineapple with the samurai sword.
Keskovski is head of the supervisory board of PharmCann Germany - and has a license to cultivate cannabis in what is now North Macedonia.
In autumn, the ex-secret service man opened a new plantation in a warehouse near Skopje.
It is said to drop 15.5 tons of cannabis per year.
The aim is to "build up a sales organization for Germany," says Zech.
However, the herb is not intended for recreational consumption, it is only about medicinal products.
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ulz / acl / dpa / Reuters
