In the NSU investigative committee, things are anything but consensual – there is a huge crunch between the opposition and the coalition. Does the Constitutional Court ultimately have to decide?
Munich (dpa / lby) – The dispute between the opposition and the coalition in the NSU investigative committee of the Bavarian state parliament continues: After the CSU and Freie Wahler had recently rejected several requests for evidence from the Greens, SPD and FDP in the committee, they also confirmed this no on Wednesday their majority in the plenary session. During the debate, both sides accused each other of having terminated the previously good cooperation in the committee. In the end, the dispute could even end up before the Bavarian Constitutional Court.
The aim of the second NSU investigative committee is, among other things, to clarify possible connections between the “National Socialist underground” and the Bavarian neo-Nazi scene. The neo-Nazi terror cell, consisting of Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, had been murdering through Germany for years. Their victims were nine traders of Turkish and Greek origin and a German policewoman.
Mundlos and Böhnhardt also carried out two bomb attacks, injuring dozens. The two killed each other in 2011 to avoid their impending arrest – only then was the NSU exposed. Zschäpe, the only survivor of the trio, was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2018 after more than five years of trial.
With the application for evidence that has now finally been rejected, the Greens, SPD and FDP wanted to request a comprehensive report from the state government on the NSU complex. Committee chief Toni Schuberl (Greens) therefore accused the coalition of a “massive blockade” – this confrontation put the constructive work in the committee at risk.
Josef Schmid (CSU), on the other hand, defended the rejection of the application. This is legally far too vague and you have to stick to the investigation order. The opposition, in turn, did not accept this: Schuberl argued that it was the committee’s right to find out what the ministries had done in the past with regard to the NSU.
The state parliament plenary session will have to decide in autumn on further requests for evidence from the Greens, SPD and FDP about a data breach at the State Criminal Police Office, which the CSU and Free Voters also recently rejected. If the coalition sticks to its no, the opposition could, as already threatened, appeal to the constitutional court.
