It was his first public appearance after the announcement from Sunday to report a criminal complaint against a journalist. On Tuesday, the Federal government had cancelled the interior Minister Horst Seehofer all appointments. On Wednesday morning, his spokesman had said that the Minister will even speak to the question of whether he would in fact call for criminal penalties for the column in the “daily” or not. In the afternoon, he met with the Austrian interior Minister, Karl Nehammer in front of the capital press. Will he win the theme on day four after the announcement? Hours to the discussions with his secretaries of state have taken on Monday and Tuesday. The arguments are obvious: As a criminal case for insult or incitement to hatred will go out because of the comparison of police officers with garbage, it is difficult to predict. A panel of the Federal Minister of the interior is not required in any case, at the Prosecutor’s office in Berlin for more than 25 complaints against the author of the column are already available. It comes to the question of whether he takes for a sign to the policemen in Germany in Trouble with the Chancellor in the purchase, holding of a display of apparently little.
Helene Bubrowski
Political correspondent in Berlin.
F. A. Z. Twitter
Seehofer also on Wednesday evening is no escape from the predicament into which he has himself, and without the Emergency has brought. In his short Statement, he spoke about the Vienna travel warning for North Rhine-Westphalia, spoke about the fight against Corona, the European refugee policy. Then it went on to demand the display. “We have to do it as with any trifle,” said Seehofer, and made the thing only bigger. It is a matter of “several important issues”. Therefore, he had to go “very carefully ahead”. As a constitutional Minister, he was for the protection of the freedom of the press, and as Minister of the interior, he had a protective and caring position for the police. On Wednesday he had for these questions in no time: the Federal Cabinet, digital Cabinet, the Federal security Council, the visit of the colleagues from Austria, in the evening, a conversation with the Berlin Senator for the interior. The decision could fall Wednesday. “But now they send no news,” he said, it could also be Thursday.
once Seehofer had announced a lawsuit, which contributed some of the political dynamite: 2016, he, at the time, nor the Bavarian Prime Minister wanted to raise a constitutional complaint against the refugee policy of the Chancellor. Then, too, he had time with the final decision and finally took this step. In the CSU, it is assumed that it will also run now. The only question is when.
