Will the German Chancellor manage to defuse the controversy?

Health Minister Jens Spahn, a prominent figure in the CDU, has been at the heart of a political storm since Der Spiegel magazine claimed that the minister had proposed in the spring of 2020 to distribute masks made in China and not certified according to European Union directives to structures welcoming disabled or homeless people.

On Monday, Angela Merkel criticized her social democratic government partner, who accuses the Minister of Health.

"This is (for the Social Democrats) to give a bad image of the fight against the pandemic," assured the conservative leader at a meeting of leaders of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), her party .

This case "is not supported by facts, to say the least," she added.

Scandal three months before the legislative elections

At the time, the novel coronavirus pandemic had just emerged and Germany, like France or other countries, was facing a glaring shortage of protective masks.

The Ministry of Labor, headed by Hubertus Heil, an SPD official, refused, according to the same source.

Three and a half months before the legislative elections, these revelations forced the Minister of Health to defend himself vigorously by expressing his indignation while the SPD has stepped up attacks against him.

"Unprecedented contempt"

Jens Spahn, criticized at the beginning of the year for the difficult start of the vaccination campaign, assured that these masks still guaranteed protection against the risk of infection.

The social-democratic co-leader Saskia Esken denounced "an unprecedented contempt" for the minister and the co-president, Norbert Walter-Borjans "an inhuman attitude" which "has nothing to do in politics".

The conservative candidate for the chancellery after the elections of September 26, Armin Laschet also rushed to the aid of Jens Spahn, assuring that the remarks made by the SPD in this affair were "not acceptable".

These masks were, according to him, certified by the German organization TÜV "and should quickly be distributed in large numbers" in this situation of shortage at the time.

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  • Scandal

  • Germany

  • Angela Merkel

  • Coronavirus

  • Covid 19

  • Health

  • Controversy

  • Homeless

  • Disabled