Berlin Private financial transactions are always tricky for a federal finance minister. The risk of conflicts of interest lurks in many places. Christian Lindner (FDP) is currently feeling this. He financed a real estate purchase through a bank, for which he delivered a greeting message on the centenary as Federal Minister of Finance.
As the “Tagesspiegel” reports, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office is examining whether they are applying for the lifting of Lindner’s MP immunity in order to be able to investigate. However, that does not mean that there is an initial suspicion against Lindner, as the public prosecutor himself emphasizes. And so there is now much anger among Liberals that the process became public at this early stage.
FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki reacted indignantly: “Reports that the Berlin Attorney General’s Office is examining the lifting of Christian Lindner’s immunity in order to investigate the suspicion of a possible advantage name are an unparalleled lack of political character and a significant violation of personal rights, which must result in personal consequences ‘ he wrote in a statement. “The Berlin Senator for Justice should resign, but at least the Attorney General should be fired.”
Kubicki is also Vice President of the Bundestag. In his statement, he points out that it is not the public prosecutor’s office that decides on the waiver of immunity, but only the Bundestag.
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In order to start investigations, the immunity does not need to be lifted separately, only a notification to the President of the German Bundestag is required. A waiver of immunity is only necessary if searches, arrests or indictments are in the room. So far, however, they have obviously not done so.
A video message to mark the bank’s centenary
The “Spiegel” had already reported on the real estate business in the autumn. Accordingly, at the beginning of 2021 – at the time he was not a minister, but only a member of the Bundestag and FDP chairman – Lindner took out a loan from the Karlsruhe cooperative bank BBBank to buy a house in Berlin. In the summer of 2022, by which time Lindner was Minister, the mortgage and loan are said to have been increased.
In between, Lindner gave the greeting on the centenary of the cooperative bank. The request for this reached the Ministry of Finance in April 2022. The institute wanted Lindner to attend an event in person. But that didn’t work. Instead, there was a video message that was broadcast at a bank meeting in May.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of Finance emphasized that such greetings were “not unusual”. In fact, federal ministers regularly appear at companies and associations or send video messages, including on anniversaries.
The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Finance did not want to comment on the specific process because of the “ongoing examination” of the public prosecutor’s office and referred to a statement by Lindner’s lawyer Christian Schertz. He said that there was no connection between the greeting and real estate financing. That’s why Lindner sees the “reporting with composure”.
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“Mr. Lindner started his private real estate financing long before he took over his ministry. All conditions were always customary in the market,” explained Schertz. In fact, so far there have been no indications in any of the reports that Lindner got the loan particularly cheaply.
The Ministry of Finance says that the entire house management would comply with the voluntary compliance rules. According to long-time employees, Lindner is said to be very meticulous about it.
“Mr. Lindner started his private real estate financing long before he took over his ministry. All conditions were always customary in the market.” Lindner’s lawyer Christian Schertz
The fact that the finance minister and leader of the FDP is now being criticized for a greeting is causing anger among his party friends. “Just insinuating corruption, although the public prosecutor’s office explicitly emphasizes that the procedure is being carried out without initial suspicion,” criticized the chairwoman of the Young Liberals, Franziska Brandmann, on Twitter.
And the Bavarian FDP leader Martin Hagen considers the actions of the public prosecutor’s office shortly before the repeat elections in Berlin to be “more unusual than the fact that a federal finance minister gave a greeting on the centenary of a bank”.
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