Berlin (AFP)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended herself on Friday for having reserved "special treatment" for the company Wirecard and for having promoted this sulphurous financial company during an official trip to China in September 2019, less than a year before the resounding bankruptcy of the company.
"Wirecard was not entitled to any special treatment," said the leader during an expected hearing before the parliamentary committee investigating the scandal.
German flagship of digital payments, Wirecard collapsed last summer when its executives admitted that 1.9 billion euros in assets, or a quarter of the size of the balance sheet, did not actually exist.
The affair shook confidence in the German financial center.
The commission of inquiry, which started in the fall, wonders what Angela Merkel knew of the embezzlement alleged against the company.
The start of 2019 was marked by a series of Financial Times (FT) investigations incriminating Wirecard for numerous irregularities.
Inaccurate and defamatory information, retorted its leaders.
"Despite all the press reports, there was no reason at the time to assume that there were serious irregularities at Wirecard," the Chancellor said on Friday, acknowledging that she had "not followed" the revelations of the FT.
During the trip to China in September, "I was accompanied by 30 companies. Wirecard AG was not a member of the trade delegation," she noted.
On the other hand, she may have been led to mention fintech to her interlocutors: "in our bilateral contacts, the federal government and I regularly commit ourselves to German companies, in the interest of economic growth - and this applies to also for China ".
"(...) Wirecard's efforts to enter the Chinese market therefore coincided with the general objective of the federal government", noted the leader.
The hearings of the parliamentary committee this week gave the floor to politicians: before Angela Merkel, the finance and economy ministers were also heard and rejected any responsibility in the late or inappropriate reactions to the red flags on Wirecard accounts.
© 2021 AFP