“I don’t believe a word the chancellor says”

Berlin Before the questioning of Olaf Scholz (SPD) in the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Cum-Ex affair in Hamburg, CDU leader Friedrich Merz criticized the Chancellor harshly.

“Unfortunately, I have to say it so clearly: I don’t believe a word the Chancellor says,” Merz told the Handelsblatt. It was “simply completely unbelievable” if Scholz allegedly no longer remembered such a serious event in his own city.

Scholz has repeatedly emphasized that as the first mayor of Hamburg, he had no political influence so that the Warburg Bank would not have to pay back millions in taxes due to cum-ex transactions. Merz doesn’t think that’s credible. “The whole way of proceeding seems to me to be more of a typical way of working for the chancellor,” said Merz.