Dubious dinner
August 27, 2009
The conservative chancellor's political opponents have pounced on the news, which comes just one month ahead of national elections.
Social Democratic budget expert, Johannes Kahrs, strongly criticized Angela Merkel, accusing the German chancellor of being "insensitive towards taxpayers" and of engaging in politics similar to those "in a banana republic."
In Tuesday’s edition of the daily newspaper Passauer Neue Presse, Kahrs said Merkel had turned the chancellory into an "event agency." He wondered publicly if anyone else had a birthday party paid out of state coffers.
Ackermann’s "wonderful evening"
In April 2008, Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann invited about 30 guests from home and abroad to the German chancellor’s office where he hosted a belated dinner to celebrate his 60th birthday in February.
In a report by the German ARD public television on Monday, Ackermann said Merkel had wanted to do him a favor and had asked him to invite some of his friends over to a party at the chancellery.
"I have to say it was a wonderful evening," the Deutsche Bank chief said in the report.
But it turns out the event was paid entirely out of the chancellor’s budget. Although the full costs of the party have not been disclosed, external catering staff alone is said to have cost about 2,100 euros.
Dining and w(h)ining
On Wednesday this week, Ackermann’s birthday bash will be on the agenda of the German parliament’s budget committee.
Lawmakers will seek to establish whether the event was of a strictly private nature or part of chancellor Merkel’s official duties.
The government press office had refused to disclose both details of the event and the names of people who had taken part in it.
"The expenses have been covered by the chancellor’s office and out of a budget earmarked for such representative purposes," the statement says.
Little meat to the bone?
The managing director of the German Taxpayers‘ Association, Reiner Holznagel, believes that allegations of any misappropriation of public funds "are on shaky ground."
The chancellor’s office, he said in a statement on Monday, reassured him that there were no private people invited to the party, but solely the official heads of German associations from business and commerce.
"There are dinners taking place at the chancellery every week," he said "and they are almost always of an official nature."
Martin Morlok, a political scientist from Dusseldorf, described the incident as yet further evidence of an overly-cozy relationship between German politics and business.
"That’s unacceptable, regardless of the question who did actually pay for what," he told the AP news agency on Tuesday.
Scandals galore as political race heats up
About a month before general elections in Germany, scandals about privileges and perks allegedly enjoyed by German politicians abound.
Just last week German Health Minister Ulla Schmidt (SPD) had to eat humble pie over using her ministerial car during private holidays in Spain.
She brought her chauffer-driven limousine on a 4,000-kilometer round trip, arguing she had needed it for official business at her holiday destination.
And the German Economics Minister Karl Theodore zu Guttenberg came under fire this month for ordering an external law firm to design an important law.
Uh/DPA/AP/Reuters
Editor: Trinity Hartman