It should be a contribution to the objectivity of the discussion: representatives of the traffic light coalition want to allow MPs to speak about statements by Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the Cum-Ex affair in the finance committee. However, the associated minutes of the meeting are not publicly accessible.
Statements by the then Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on the so-called Cum-Ex affair of July 1, 2020 should no longer be classified. According to the three traffic light groups, the Finance Committee of the Bundestag wants to make a corresponding decision at its meeting this Wednesday. “More transparency is in the public interest,” said representatives of the SPD, Greens and FDP parliamentary groups.
All redacted passages should be removed from the minutes of the meeting and the classification as “confidential” should be lifted. The document will not be published, but all members of the Bundestag and representatives of the federal states will have access with this “downgrading” without any special restrictions and may talk about the content – that was not allowed before.
In the case of “cum-ex” transactions, blocks of shares were shifted back and forth by several participants around the dividend record date with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) a right to a dividend. As a result, tax offices reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid at all. The state suffered billions in damage. The role of Hamburg’s financial administration in 2016 and 2017 is much discussed. At that time, today’s Chancellor Scholz was Hamburg’s mayor.
A committee of inquiry in the Hanseatic city is to clarify whether leading SPD politicians had any influence on the tax treatment of the Warburg Bank during Scholz’s time as mayor. At the end of 2016, contrary to the original plan, the tax authorities waived a reclaim of 47 million euros from the bank. According to its own statements, the bank only settled all outstanding tax reclaims in 2020 after a court ruling, but is still trying to get the money back through legal channels.
The financial policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Michael Schrodi, sees the move as a contribution to making the discussion more objective. The protocol contains no surprises. “False claims about supposedly secret commitments and contradictory statements are being pulled out of the ground.” His counterpart in the Greens parliamentary group, Katharina Beck, who is also deputy committee chair, emphasized: “The downgrading of the protocol is an important sign of parliamentary democracy.”
The financial policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Markus Herbrand, explained that the step would “certainly not answer all open questions about the billions in fraud in the financial sector”. However, it shows the clear will of the traffic light for clarification and transparency. “The fraud must be cleared up and those personally responsible must be punished.”
