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Not a word about Porsche: Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP)
Photo: Michele Tantussi / REUTERS
That's what you call a faux pas.
While the "Bild" newspaper was investigating the allegation of close collusion between Porsche and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), it says it received a misdirected SMS from the sender: a Porsche spokesman.
Intended recipient: the spokesman for Lindner.
Content: an agreement on how to react to the "Mauschel allegations".
The paper wrote on its front page on Saturday about a "treacherous SMS" and asked: "Is that Lindner's Porsche gate?"
According to the ZDF satirical program »Die Anstalt«, the Porsche boss Oliver Blume, who was promoted to the top of the Volkswagen Group on Friday, is said to have boasted about his influence on the federal government at a works meeting.
Porsche has managed to get the e-fuels, which the FDP boss also favors as an alternative to electric cars, to be included in the coalition agreement of the traffic light coalition.
The decisive sentence: »Christian Lindner has kept me up to date almost every hour in the last few days.«
With both men facing criticism, an after-the-fact collusion between the spokespersons to respond to the allegations isn't all that surprising — and at least doesn't automatically prove that there was close collusion beforehand.
You want to avoid getting caught up in contradictions with different opinions.
However, that is exactly what came out. Lindner contradicted ZDF harshly on Friday via his team on Twitter.
There had been "no previous contact with Mr. Blume and no other influence".
Initially, according to »Bild«, Porsche also denied the content of the show.
Then, after sending the stray SMS, the spokesman withdrew his denial.
Instead, there was only the evasive answer, "as is well known, a satirical program enjoys freedoms."
Porsche made a similar statement to SPIEGEL.
"The exchange didn't happen like that" - the little word "like that" suggests that there was an exchange, possibly also about the coalition negotiations and e-fuels, just maybe not hourly updates.
The company expressly did not want to comment on whether Oliver Blume's quote from the "Institute" from the works meeting is correct or not.
"Just a short phone call"
As a result, Porsche accepts that the statement verified with sources according to ZDF remains credible in the room.
And the company accepts that its boss, Oliver Blume, is in a bad way: If the quote is correct, he either boasted to the workforce about false successes - or he actually exerted undue influence on politics, and that as the future CEO of Germany's largest industrial group.
Compared to the "Welt am Sonntag", Porsche now apparently opted for variant 1: "During an internal event in June, the wording was exaggerated, for which we apologize." Blume chose words that did not correspond to the facts.
However, questions should primarily be directed at the Minister of Finance, who is ultimately not committed to the interests of a stock corporation, but to the well-being of the German people.
Lindner's denial was formulated so harshly that it wouldn't even be enough if the Blume quote turned out to be wrong.
»No contact with Mr. Blume«, is this statement really true?
Lindner could not initially be reached for a statement to SPIEGEL on Saturday.
However, the FDP conceded that in October - the coalition negotiations began on October 21, 2021 - there was "only a short telephone call" between the future Federal Minister of Finance and Porsche boss Oliver Blume "on questions about the use of e-fuels".
In the newspapers of the Funke media group, the finance minister commented on several topics on Saturday: He did not want to continue financing the 9-euro ticket.
The debt brake must be complied with by 2023.
At the same time, he is preparing a reform of the income tax that should relieve the burden on citizens in the coming year.
The state purchase premium for electric cars and plug-in hybrids must be “massively” reduced.
Not a word about Porsche.
with material from AFP