CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja accuses the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Manuela Schwesig (SPD), of a lack of willingness to clarify the allegations surrounding the Climate and Environmental Protection Foundation MV. In Schwerin, “only cover-ups, tricks, deceptions are still the order of the day,” he told RTL on Monday.
Schwesig came under pressure when it became public that a tax office employee had burned tax documents from the climate foundation in spring 2022. According to the responsible public prosecutor’s office in Stralsund, the employee acted out of self-protection. The authority ruled out any political influence.
Schwesig, who is accused of having made an agreement about tax exemption for the foundation, said on Sunday on ARD that she found out about the incident on an “evening last week” through an online article. She believes that the fact that she was not informed by her justice minister and her finance minister, who knew about this months earlier, is the right course of action in such a case. “A prime minister should not interfere in tax and public prosecutor matters,” she said.
Minister of Finance is considered a close confidante of Schwesig
The tax case is about whether the Climate Foundation has to pay gift tax for donations of around 20 million euros from a Gazprom subsidiary. According to Finance Minister Heiko Geue (SPD), copies of the documents, which were initially believed to have disappeared, were already available at the time of the burning. The tax case was not affected, he said last week.
In the end, a decision was issued for 9.8 million euros in gift tax, against which the foundation is suing. A decision on this is still pending. The foundation assumes that the grants were only intended for the charitable part of the foundation, not for the business operation, which was intended to promote the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Therefore, she does not feel obliged to pay gift tax.
Geue is considered a close confidant of Schwesig. CDU General Secretary Czaja doubted the credibility of her recent statements on the files on Monday with reference to this.
On Friday, Geue was questioned for several hours in the legal and finance committee of the Schwerin state parliament. He repeated what he had said a few days earlier: that tax secrecy had prevented him from passing on information. The Foundation and the Ministry of Finance contradict each other on the issue of a release from tax secrecy: According to the Foundation, this was not requested, according to the Ministry, a comprehensive release was refused until the end of February, despite repeated requests.
foundation is to be dissolved
The climate lesson was also a topic in the Bundestag last week; the union had applied for a current hour. Several MPs from the Greens and FDP parties involved in the federal traffic light coalition also sharply criticized the SPD-led state government under Schwesig.
On Tuesday, the board of directors of the foundation, Erwin Sellering (SPD) – former Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania – wanted to speak at a press conference in Schwerin on the state of affairs relating to the climate foundation. He had announced that the board would resign as soon as business operations had been completed and the auditors had issued a certificate.
Schwesig played a key role in setting up the foundation in 2021. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, she distanced herself from it. The foundation should then be dissolved, which is not easily possible under foundation law.