The CDU in the Hamburg Parliament is threatening to fail with its application to postpone the hearing of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) planned for August 19 before the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the “Cum-Ex” scandal.

The government factions of the SPD and the Greens had announced that they would reject a relocation of dates, the CDU parliamentary group announced on Friday.

According to the information provided, the CDU application, which all opposition factions have joined, relates not only to the renewed questioning of Chancellor Scholz, but also to the questioning of Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and those members of the financial administration who are involved in the tax waiver compared to the "Cum -Ex" scandal involved Hamburger Warburg Bank.

"The behavior of the SPD and the Greens borders on a mockery of parliamentary control," said the spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group in the committee, Götz Wiese.

The fact that the Greens, as a rule-of-law party, wanted to join this game gives a deep insight.

This is how the work of the committee is torpedoed.

"This is downright cynical when you realize that Olaf Scholz only remembers information that is public knowledge."

More time for investigative files

The background to the requested postponement is that the documents sent by the Cologne public prosecutor's office, according to the CDU, only have to be evaluated this week.

According to research by WDR, it is about a WhatsApp chat in which a Hamburg tax officer wrote to a colleague in 2016 - shortly after the tax authorities had decided against a tax reclaim against the bank - that her "diabolical plan" had worked.

There were also indications that messages could have been deleted or recordings manipulated.

The WDR has now published further details from the chats.

The committee of inquiry is investigating whether leading SPD politicians may have influenced the Warburg tax case.

Shortly after the meeting between the then Mayor of Hamburg, Scholz, and the bank's shareholders in 2016, the tax authorities decided, contrary to the original plan, to waive tax reclaims in the amount of 47 million euros and to let them run into the statute of limitations.

A further 43 million euros were only claimed in 2017 after the Federal Ministry of Finance intervened shortly before the statute of limitations expired.

At his first hearing before the committee in April last year, Scholz denied any political influence on the tax treatment of Warburg Bank.

However, he could no longer remember the discussions with the shareholders.

The then finance senator and current mayor Tschentscher also rejected all allegations before the committee as “completely unfounded”.

CDU called for further investigations

"If chat messages now indicate that a "diabolical plan" has been hatched among employees in the financial administration, then this can only be the beginning of further investigations," said Wiese last week.

"At the center of the events are the management levels led by the then Finance Senator Peter Tschentscher and the then First Mayor Olaf Scholz." Scholz had to be confronted with the further investigation results "so that he can remember better," said Wiese.

"The PUA does not know the chat history quoted by WDR - we can therefore not yet say anything about the obvious assumption that other departments of the Hamburg tax authorities could have been involved in the matter," said the chairman of the left, Norbert Hackbusch last Friday.

"However, we will receive documents from the Cologne public prosecutor's office in the next few days, which will probably give us more clarity."

The SPD also considers it necessary to examine the files from Cologne, said its chairman Milan Pein.

At the same time, however, he warned: “A confiscated, private chat message has been made public, the background and circumstances of which are unknown and therefore cannot be evaluated at this point in time.

We have already experienced that evidence from North Rhine-Westphalia has become public. ”Contents were presented in a shortened form.

What is meant are entries from the diaries of Warburg shareholder Christian Olearius, which also came from the Cologne investigation files.

In it, Olearius described how he and the bank co-owner Max Warburg met Scholz in his office in the town hall in 2016 and 2017 and also talked about the tax case.

At that time, Olearius was already being investigated on suspicion of serious tax evasion.

Tax money scandal shakes tax authority

The publications shortly before the 2020 state elections finally led to the establishment of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry.

He should clarify a possible influence of leading SPD politicians.

Shortly after the 2016 meeting, the tax authorities decided, contrary to the original plan, to waive possible tax reclaims of 47 million euros and to let them run into the statute of limitations.

A further 43 million euros were only claimed in 2017 after the Federal Ministry of Finance intervened shortly before the statute of limitations expired.

Warburg Bank later had to repay more than 176 million euros in unjustly refunded taxes due to a court order.

However, she is still trying to take legal action against the tax assessments later amended by the tax office.

In "cum-ex" deals, financial players moved blocks of shares with ("cum") and without ("ex") dividend entitlement around the dividend record date in a complicated system and then had taxes refunded that were never paid.

This caused damage to the state in the billions.