Germany’s conservative opposition – the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) – announced on Tuesday that it would request a parliamentary inquiry into the tax evasion scandal involving the Warburg bank in Hamburg, which would thus also investigate the role played in this scandal by the current social-democratic chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was at that time mayor-governor of the city-state of Hamburg.
Olaf ScholzPhoto: Bernd Von Jutrczenka / AFP / Profimedia Images
The scandal called “CumEx Files” is related to a tax optimization scheme designed by banks, including the Warburg bank. Years in a row, banks and investors, resorting to a series of financial maneuvers, obtained from the Treasury the reimbursement of taxes that they had never actually paid. It is estimated that the German Treasury was thus damaged by around 36 billion euros in the period 2000-2020, reports the EFE press agency, quoted by Agerpres.
Olaf Scholz, as mayor of Hamburg, had meetings in 2016 and 2017 with Christian Olearios and Max Warburg, managers of the Warburg bank. In 2016, the tax office of the city of Hamburg refused to collect an amount of 47 million euros obtained by the Warburg bank through irregular transactions carried out through a tax optimization scheme. Another debt, of 43 million euros, was claimed only after pressure from the Ministry of Finance and following a judicial decision.
The CDU/CSU alliance believes that the Tax initially wanted to demand the payment of the 47 million euros, but then changed its mind, and wants to elucidate through the parliamentary investigation if the refusal to collect that amount has anything to do with the respective meetings of Scholz.
The current chancellor has been under pressure for a long time because of this scandal. The regional parliament in Hamburg has already started its own investigation in which a committee of its own questioned Scholz several times. He claimed before this commission that he does not remember the meetings with Olearios and Warburg. But documents from the Bundestag (the lower house of the German federal parliament) show that he provided details of those meetings during a Finance Committee hearing in 2020.
In order to create a commission of inquiry in the Bundestag, the vote of at least 25% of the total number of deputies is needed, therefore the CDU/CSU has enough votes to launch it.
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