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CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja: "A trained tax investigator should not have known anything about all this?"
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Julian Weber / dpa
The case of the controversial climate foundation MV is currently causing a lot of unrest in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
It's about a nebulous EUR 20 million donation from the Gazprom group, a burned tax return and the question of whether the authorities might want to exempt the Russian company from paying taxes.
Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig is particularly criticized.
The Union faction had put the topic on the agenda of the Bundestag for Wednesday.
In the current hour, CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja attacked Schwesig sharply for dealing with the scandal.
The foundation has not yet been dissolved and the 20 million euros donated by Gazprom are still in their possession - contrary to what Schwesig had promised.
"She simply lacks political hygiene," said Czaja about Schwesig.
For months, Schwesig's state government has been confronted with the accusation that the dubious foundation was only founded to circumvent possible US sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and to push the completion of the project with Russian help.
Recently it became known that a tax officer apparently destroyed important tax documents for the foundation in spring 2022 – out of concern for personal complications.
The files were relevant because they were used to clarify whether the foundation should have paid gift tax for a 20 million payment from Nord Stream 2 AG.
The state is now demanding almost ten million euros in gift tax from the foundation.
The foundation is defending itself legally.
The question has not yet been finally clarified.
The officer had initially misplaced the documents and then burned them in a private fireplace when they were being searched for.
Apparently, members of the state government were informed of the process early on, but informed the public only after a great delay.
"We won't let Schwesig get away with that"
Schwesig promised quick clarification, but she was not on the list of speakers at the current hour in the Bundestag.
Meanwhile, Czaja attacked her credibility.
"This prime minister, a trained tax investigator, is said to have known nothing about all this, was not informed about this process by her finance minister and her justice minister?" He doesn't think so.
The CDU member of the Bundestag Philipp Amthor criticized Schwesig for her absence.
"We won't let Schwesig get away with that." For him, the question arises: "Why do Schwesig's ministers lie?"
In the speeches of its parliamentarians, the SPD took Schwesig out of focus – instead, the parliamentary group focused on the erroneous tax officer.
"You're drawing a mistake by a 26-year-old tax clerk into the nationwide limelight," said Erik von Malottki, a member of the Bundestag.
The woman was afraid of getting "at the center of a political and media campaign" because of a wrongly filed file.
"Yes, she made a mistake," added Malottki's faction colleague Timon Gremmels.
But the officer revealed that individual misconduct had been worked up.
Sol
