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Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Hamburg's Mayor Peter Tschentscher are to testify before the parliamentary committee of inquiry of the Hamburg citizenship on the Cum-Ex scandal.
The two SPD politicians are among around a dozen of the first witnesses named by the committee on Friday.
Among them are the former Hamburg member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs and the former Interior Senator and Second Mayor Alfons Pawelczyk (both SPD).
The committee of inquiry is supposed to clarify the allegation of the possible influence of leading SPD politicians on the tax treatment of the Hamburg Warburg Bank involved in the cum-ex scandal.
The background to this are meetings between the then Hamburg mayor Scholz in 2016 and 2017 with Warburg co-owner Christian Olearius, who was under investigation on suspicion of serious tax evasion.
Tschentscher was Finance Senator at the time.
Hamburg later allowed possible additional tax claims of 47 million euros to become statute-barred, a further 43 million euros was only claimed after the Federal Ministry of Finance intervened.
In the meantime, the Warburg Bank has paid all tax claims, but this is not an admission of guilt, as it emphasized.
The committee also decided to hear Olearius as a victim.
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Scholz and Tschentscher have rejected all allegations of influence, but have not commented on details, citing tax secrecy.
At the beginning of the committee meeting, the chairman of the task force, Claudio Kirch-Heim, reported on a letter from the Warburg attorneys, in which the committee was requested to file charges against unknown persons, as information from files that were also available to the committee was reported had reached the press.
The SPD MP Milan Pein emphasized that there was no evidence that the information "was passed on from the area of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry".
Left-wing MP Norbert Hackbusch met with outrage from the SPD when he described the deputy chairmanship of the workforce with Carsten Ernst, an official from the Federal Ministry of Finance, as a “triumvirate of a political party”.
With Mathias Petersen, the committee chair is already occupied by an SPD deputy.
This had appointed the chairman of the working group, Kirch-Heim, who in turn suggested Ernst.
"We know that the top boss of the Federal Ministry of Finance is Olaf Scholz," said Hackbusch.
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The SPD politician Pein called the statements "under all cannon" and spoke of "political theater".
"If that should be the next tone for this committee, then good night, Marie." The secretary of the committee, Richard Seelmaecker (CDU), described it as "unfortunate" that Ernst's appointment was merely communicated without discussing it.
Ernst assured that his employers in the ministry had nothing to do with taking over the office in the committee.
"There were no discussions with Federal Minister Scholz or State Secretary Wolfgang Schmidt about my work here." Schmidt is State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and a close confidante of Scholz.
The committee plans to meet for the next time in two weeks.
It should also be decided how to handle files that can only be viewed in a specially set up room, but not yet allowed to be taken.
Berlin Greens are calling for clarification
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The financial expert of the Greens parliamentary group, Lisa Paus, hopes for the work of the Hamburg committee.
"In every survey in the Bundestag, further details in the Warburg case have come to light," she told the German Press Agency.
“So far, Olaf Scholz and the SPD have only admitted bit by bit, which could no longer be denied publicly.
In addition there were the alleged gaps in memory of Olaf Scholz regarding the important meeting with Mr. Olearius. "Real clarification looks different, complained Paus.
In Hamburg it must be clarified to what extent tax secrecy applies to the committee.
As the chief of staff Kirch-Heim said, both Olearius and Warburg Bank have refused to be released from tax secrecy.