Abbas’ relativization of the Holocaust in the Chancellery, rising energy prices, the cum-ex scandal: Chancellor Scholz has had a difficult week. He should not be sad that a trip to a different time zone is now pending. But even there it can get uncomfortable.
Perhaps Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspected that these five days would not be easy. “It’s probably the best moment for me this week, being able to drive a truck here with my Swedish colleague,” he said when he was allowed to test an electric truck together with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. At this point, the week was not even two days old. “I’ve already thought about it, we’ll both be truckers now and then our future will be secured,” joked the exhilarated SPD politician in Sweden. The Chancellor was right – it was probably the best moment of the week.
The day before, things hadn’t exactly gone well. On Monday he visited Norway to talk about the energy crisis. There, his Social Democrat colleague Jonas Gahr Støre explained that his country, Germany, was continuing to supply natural gas at a high level, but was reaching the limits of its own capacity. There was also disagreement on whether Russian citizens should continue to receive visas for the Schengen area. The German chancellor is for it, the northern Europeans reject it.
After Scholz had tested e-trucks with Norway’s neighbor Sweden on Tuesday, the chancellor went straight back to Berlin. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was still waiting in the chancellery that afternoon. During the joint press conference, Scholz already criticized Abbas, who described Israeli politics as an alleged “apartheid system”. At the end of the event, Abbas was asked if he would apologize to Israel on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Israeli Olympic team by Palestinian terrorists in Munich.
But Abbas didn’t want to apologize, instead he accused Israel of “50 holocausts.” Scholz stood by in silence, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit ended the press conference. Scholz, at least visibly upset, then shook Abbas’ hand. But the relativization of the Holocaust initially went unchallenged in the Chancellery. Only later did Scholz condemn the statements – first in the “Bild” newspaper, the next morning on Twitter.
What remained was public indignation – and the regret of Scholz’s spokesman Hebestreit. On Wednesday he took the blame and explained in the federal press conference: “I wasn’t quick enough, attentive enough to react to it. It was my mistake and I have to take responsibility for it.” Scholz “briefly snapped at him when he left the stage,” Hebestreit reported. The chancellor told him “that I did it a bit quickly and that he would have liked to have replied.”
Subsequently, it was not only criticized that the chancellor had not reacted immediately, but also the speaker Hebestreit. “But my criticism is particularly aimed at the press spokesman, Mr. Hebestreit. The fact that he closed the conference before the chancellor could even catch his breath is politically instinctive,” said FDP defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann to the “Spiegel”.
Scholz’s black week continued on Wednesday with a public dialogue in Neuruppin. Again not everything went according to plan. The chancellor was greeted with a whistling concert in the Brandenburg city and repeatedly shouted down by the approximately 300 counter-demonstrators while he was talking about relief for the citizens.
Just a few days ago, during his first summer press conference as chancellor, Scholz said that despite the rising cost of living, he did not expect any “unrest” in winter. On the morning of the Neuruppin Citizens’ Dialogue, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution did not warn of a “winter of anger”. However, the officials said that a mixture of right-wing extremists, conspiracy believers, Reich citizens and so-called delegitimizers had already positioned themselves.
After the rebuff in Norway, the lack of a response in view of Abbas’ failure and the appearance in Neuruppin, Scholz tried to break the dark series on Thursday and get back on the offensive. At short notice, he had a statement announced in the Chancellery. At lunchtime, Scholz then announced briefly and succinctly: The federal government would reduce the value added tax on gas from 19 to 7 percent, he repeated his “You’ll Never Walk Alone” promise to the citizens and announced a further, third relief package, but gave no details.
The performance lasted less than two minutes. The Chancellor and his spokesman did not allow questions. The majority of these had probably related to the Abbas case and another unpleasant weekly appointment that was still outstanding. The feel-good truck ride in Sweden was only 48 hours ago, it felt like weeks. And now there should finally be positive news from the Chancellor again. According to rumours, the Federal Ministry of Economics had given the head of government his own idea of ??reducing the value-added tax. But Scholz’s week didn’t brighten up.
There wasn’t really a lot of praise outside of the traffic light coalition for the reduction in gas VAT – on the contrary. Economists in particular tore up the plans. In an interview with ntv.de, Rüdiger Bachmann called the measure “highly problematic in economic terms”. It is unfair, because gas customers who purchased very cheap gas through old contracts benefited from it. When asked whether it wasn’t right to relieve millions of households, Bachmann said: “Of course, but not like that.” The social market economy works differently. It was still only Thursday.
The end of Scholz’ difficult week was still waiting for him. In the days before, the Cum-Ex scandal had come back into the public eye. Just last week, at the summer press conference, a journalist’s question on the subject made him uneasy. Six days later, on Wednesday of this week, the “Stern” reported that Scholz had apparently made contradictory statements to parliamentary committees about his meetings with Hamburg banker Christian Olearius. The magazine quoted for the first time from the minutes of a meeting of the Bundestag Finance Committee that was classified as confidential. Accordingly, the Chancellor could remember a meeting with the banker before the committee in July 2020, which he had previously denied.
It was probably the highlight of this week, which had been five days old and which had gone extremely badly for the Chancellor, that yesterday, Friday, Scholz had to testify for the second time before the Hamburg Parliament’s investigative committee on the subject of cum ex. In essence, the committee is concerned with the question of whether leading SPD politicians have influenced the tax treatment of the Warburg Bank. There, Scholz – once the first mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City – repeated what he had said several times before: “I had no influence on the Warburg tax process.” The Chancellor pointed out that tax evasion is not a “minor crime”. He’s always seen it that way. It is therefore clear: “There was no preferential treatment for Mr. Warburg or Mr. Olearius.” In addition, Scholz said again that he could no longer remember the content of the conversation. And it still wasn’t a weekend.
In the evening, the Russian gas company Gazprom announced that it would completely shut off the Nord Stream 1 gas tap for three days at the turn of the month. The reason is maintenance work. Nobody knows whether the tap will be turned on again.
After a citizens’ dialogue on the “Federal Government’s Open Day” on Sunday, the Chancellor, together with Climate Minister Robert Habeck and a business delegation, will be going to Canada on the same day. Different continent, different time zone. But Scholz does not expect an easy appointment there either, after all, the German-Canadian relationship was better off. The reason is the gas turbine for the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline, which was serviced in Montreal. Actually, the Canadian Russia sanctions would have forbidden the component to be returned to Russia. After pressure from Germany, Ottawa released the component. The harsh criticism of the move hit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at home with full force.
Scholz and Habeck have to calm things down there. First up was an interview with Canadian newspapers earlier this month. There Scholz ensnares the country and names several economic areas of cooperation. “Canada would be a welcome energy partner for us. Not only in terms of liquefied natural gas, which is important at the moment, but also in terms of hydrogen and critical mineral raw materials that are needed for battery manufacture or for wind turbines,” he said. The first plan is to sign a hydrogen agreement. It could be good news for Scholz again.
