2024-07-17 11:16:55
The leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Friedrich Merz, flies in the Eurofighter. Three weeks later, criticism of the costs is voiced.
Green Party leader Ricarda Lang has criticised Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz’s flight in a Eurofighter fighter jet during a visit to the Air Force in June. “That is quite instinctive. Over 100,000 euros should be spent on the troops and not on personal adventures and self-promotion,” Lang wrote on the internet platform X.
She was obviously referring to the government’s response to a parliamentary question from Left Party MP Cornelia Möhring about the cost of the flight. However, the Ministry of Defense stressed that the costs of 111,242.38 euros were not additional costs for the CDU leader: “These would have been incurred (…) even without the participation of third parties, since the Eurofighter training flight was part of routine flight operations and would have taken place with the same flying content even without the presence of MP Friedrich Merz.”
Die Linke’s Möhring nevertheless spoke of a “waste of resources”: “Merz carried out his flight instead of the budgeted flight hours of an Air Force co-pilot who stayed on the ground for Merz.”
Merz completed the flight when he visited the Eurofighter airfield in Laage in June. The amateur pilot even flew parts of the flight himself, but the Luftwaffe pilot was in command in the front cockpit. The plane broke the sound barrier during the flight.