Case Khashoggi: FDP politician calls behavior of Siemens boss Kaeser "irresponsible"

The investor conference FII was planned for a long time, it is considered a prestige project for the Saudi royal family. But after the unexplained death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, numerous US companies have canceled their participation in Riyadh next week.

A German manager but wants to stick to the participation: Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser. He is on the Advisory Board of the Investor Conference. "If we stop communicating with countries where people are missing, I can stay home right away," said the business manager this week in Toronto.

In the past few days, however, several members of this body have withdrawn, so Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post and board member at Uber. The same applies to the MasterCard boss Ajay Banga.

AFP

Joe Kaeser

The behavior of the Siemens boss is increasingly encountering incomprehension and criticism in German politics. "It is also the responsibility of the German economy to act valued," said the foreign policy spokesman of the FDP parliamentary group, Bijan Djir-Sarai, the SPIEGEL. The German companies should therefore avoid the investor conference closed.

The statements of the Siemens manager Kaeser called the FDP politician "irresponsible". Djir-Sarai: "He should reconsider which values ​​he and his group represent and follow the example of many other refusals."

Gabriel sees himself confirmed

Previously, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, Norbert Röttgen (CDU), explicitly Kaeser had taken the duty and said that Germany should apply that there should now be "no business as usual" with Saudi Arabia.

imago / photothek

FDP politician Bijan Djir-Sarai

Khashoggi had gone to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey on October 2 to collect papers for his planned wedding. Since then he has disappeared (read an overview here).

According to media reports, Turkish authorities assume that the journalist in the consulate was cruelly killed by a special team from Saudi Arabia. The internationally debated question: Has the powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of the journalist critical of the government?

The Khashoggi case comes at a time when tense German-Saudi relations seemed to be normalizing. So Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) had actually planned a trip to Riyadh, but now put it back. His predecessor Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) sees itself confirmed by the development of the past few days in his critical assessment of Saudi Arabia, as he now told the SPIEGEL. Gabriel's comments last year had led to diplomatic upsets.

FDP parliamentary vice appeals to German economy

The alleged crime is sensitive for German politics. Saudi Arabia is the second best customer in the German defense industry this year, as a green request from the German government revealed. In terms of personnel, Germany is also valued in Riyadh. For example, former Siemens manager Klaus Kleinfeld has been advising the Saudi crown prince on modernizing the country since this summer. Although he gave up the post as head of the infrastructure project "Neom" on the Red Sea, but remained on the board of the project company.

With "Neom", the ruling family between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba wants to locate international companies from the energy and water industries through biotechnology to the entertainment industry. Objective: to make the country more independent of oil exports.

For the FDP politician Djir-Sarai, Saudi Arabia remains an extraordinarily important player in the global economy. While politics should not interfere with business affairs, he repeats a line that many in his party share. "In this case, it is not only about economic interests, but the credibility of the entire German foreign policy in the region at stake," said the foreign policy.

With his attitude, Djir-Sarai is not alone in his party. Also the FDP parliamentary group vice president, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, called on the German economy not to support the investor conference in Riyadh until the Khashoggi case was cleared up. The crown prince must know "that he can not present himself as a reformer and at the same time can trample on human and civil rights".