The Union faction had to record three resignations in the past week. However, two MEPs who are being investigated for corruption are still part of the group. An absolute scandal, says the SPD.
“No!”, Said the CDU politician Mark Hauptmann of the “Welt” on Thursday when asked whether there was a CDU-Azerbaijan connection. Meanwhile further allegations raised against the Thuringian, which has nothing to do with the Caucasus republic, but with the procurement of masks.
Hauptmann has resigned his mandate, and the people who triggered the mask scandal, Georg Nüßlein (ex-CSU) and Nikolaus Löbel (ex-CDU), have also left the Union parliamentary group; Löbel also left the Bundestag like Hauptmann. That nourishes the impression: For the CDU and CSU, advertising for a despotic regime is not as bad as the enrichment of the pandemic. Because Karin Strenz and Axel Fischer still belong to the Union parliamentary group.
If there is such a thing as an Azerbaijan connection in the Union, then these two would probably be its parliamentary arm. Investigations are underway against both Strenz and Fischer because of the initial suspicion of bribery of elected officials. On January 30, 2020, the Bundestag lifted Strenz’s immunity. The Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office and the Federal Criminal Police Office then searched her parliamentary office, her apartment and other premises in Germany and Belgium. Eduard Lintner, who sat for the CSU in the Bundestag from 1976 to 2009, is also being investigated.
It was a good week ago for Axel Fischer. On March 4, his office and home were searched after the Bundestag lifted his immunity. From the perspective of the LobbyControl organization, this was “a new dimension” in the Azerbaijan affair. “The previously known allegations against Karin Strenz and Eduard Lintner are only part of a larger network”, said Ulrich Müller, one of the founders of LobbyControl. It is still open today “where all the money from Azerbaijan went and who benefited from it,” said Müller. “But the Union and the Union parliamentary group have shown no interest in a comprehensive investigation of the scandal.”
It’s about oil
Nevertheless, the Union is now reacting very sensitively to the issue of Azerbaijan. Reports that CDU State Secretary Thomas Bareiß was working for a German company on behalf of Azerbaijan were vehemently rejected by the Union-led Federal Ministry of Economics. The journalist of the editorial network Germany, who the corresponding items wrote with a colleague, however, insists that he got off of all the reporting to take back nothing. It also quotes an old one Tweet von Bareiß, in which he writes, Azerbaijan will be “a strong strategic partner in a difficult region”. The country is one of the ten most important crude oil suppliers to the Federal Republic.
Azerbaijan exports not only oil and gas, but also money. Billions is said to have spread the country in the west to polish up its bad image. That was 3000 euros for a sports club that the then mayor of Oppenheim, the SPD member of the Bundestag, Marcus Held, from the Azerbaijani oil and gas company Socar organized. State company money floss also to the Frankfurt CDU. And it was more than 800,000 euros, the CSU man Lintner from Azerbaijan should have cashed. After leaving the Bundestag, Lintner founded the “Society for the Promotion of German-Azerbaijani Relations” in 2009 and the “Line M-Trade” company in 2014, which in turn founded Strenz paid for consulting activities. She received at least 22,000 euros according to the prosecutor.
Mark Hauptmann also benefited, at least indirectly, from business contacts in Azerbaijan. The embassy of the state placed advertisements in the “Südthüringen-Kurier”, Hauptmann’s free constituency newspaper, like the “Spiegel” reported. According to “Tagesspiegel” In October 2018, Hauptmann traveled to the Azerbaijani capital Baku for talks at the expense of the Bundestag, where he met with the Minister of Economic Affairs, the Minister of Energy and Socar representatives. He was accompanied by Otto Hauser, a former CDU member of the Bundestag, Azerbaijani honorary consul since 2010. When asked about Hauser, the captain said “World” only that honorary consuls have the task of “strengthening relations between Germany and the respective country”. Incidentally, Nikolas Löbel also traveled to Azerbaijan – twice in 2018 alone, according to the “Tagesspiegel”.
“There are even two Azerbaijan connections”
So is there an Azerbaijan connection in the Union? The SPD member of the Bundestag Frank Schwabe has no doubt about it. “In my estimation there are even two ‘Azerbaijan Connections’: one around the Council of Europe, financed by the former CSU MP and State Secretary Eduard Lintner directly from Azerbaijan.” The other run independently of the Council of Europe through special payments from Azerbaijan to support members of parliament and party branches in Germany.
In addition to their current or former membership in the Union parliamentary group, Lintner, Fischer and Strenz have one thing in common: They were members of the 18-person delegation of the Bundestag to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The body consists of 47 countries and has nothing to do with the European Union. Azerbaijan is also sending members to the Parliamentary Assembly.
The objectives of the body are the protection of human rights, pluralistic democracy and the rule of law, as stated on the Website of the German delegation called. There is a huge gap between these goals and the reality in Azerbaijan, which Baku tried to fill with money and lobbying – the European Stability Initiative (ESI) think tank called this approach “caviar diplomacy” Message. The country gave members of the Parliamentary Assembly expensive gifts, said ESI boss Gerald Knaus told Deutschlandfunk in 2017, “Gold, jewelry, expensive carpets, envelopes with money, transfers to consulting firms that were close to MPs”.
In the meantime, the Council of Europe has “largely dealt with the scandal,” says Schwabe, deputy head of the German Council of Europe delegation. Strenz, for example, has a lifelong entry ban in the Council of Europe, and in Italy one of the actors was sentenced to four years in prison at first instance. “The German delegation is now different,” said Schwabe. He himself is currently working on an application for the creation of a permanent supervisory body on behalf of the Council of Europe. “The Council of Europe acts. Whoever does not act is the CDU / CSU parliamentary group.”
“There is blood on the hands of Karin Strenz and Axel Fischer”
Because Strenz and Fischer do not have to fear being kicked out of the Union faction, at least not so far. “I think that’s an absolute scandal, to say the least,” says Schwabe. “Mask deals are reprehensible,” he says, which is why it is right that conclusions were drawn on this issue. “But Azerbaijan is about covering up the most serious human rights violations. There is blood on the hands of Karin Strenz and Axel Fischer.” Michael Grosse-Brömer, the parliamentary manager of the Union parliamentary group, has known the dimensions of the scandal for at least four years. Nevertheless, he participates in the belittling and failure to enlighten. “He is partly responsible for the fact that the Azerbaijan lobby is up to this day doing mischief in the Union faction.” Fischer and Strenz would have to be thrown out of the parliamentary group. “Immediately.”
Rasul Jafarov does not make such demands. The lawyer belongs to the Baku Human Rights Club and has already served in prison in Azerbaijan for his commitment. Political communication is fundamentally legitimate, he writes in an email from the Azerbaijani capital when asked what he thinks of European politicians campaigning for the government in Baku. However, it is important to know whether this involves illegal activities, such as corruption. If there is a suspicion, it should be investigated and, if necessary, punished. “Our position towards corrupt European politicians is therefore very negative. We believe that this should be prevented.”
Not because of the Azerbaijan connections, but as a result of the Nüßlein and Löbel cases, the Union parliamentary group now wants to give itself a code of conduct that “goes well beyond the legal situation”, as parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt said in a letter on Friday wrote to the MPs. In addition, the parliamentary group’s executive committee has launched a “10-point transparency offensive”, which is supposed to prohibit the representation of interests of members of the Bundestag. The SPD has clearly more far-reaching ideas than the Union, but the resistance of the CDU and CSU on this issue seems to be subsiding.
Azerbaijan is not mentioned in the ten points, even in the so-called declaration of honor, which all Union members – including Fischer and Strenz – have signed, it is only about the enrichment in the pandemic. The parliamentary group apparently still has an eye on lobbying for other countries. When asked about Azerbaijan, the deputy leader of the Union parliamentary group, Gitta Connemann ntv, said that the code of conduct will also cover such transactions. “We are at the beginning, we will not stop, we have given assurances that we will proceed decisively and hard and consistently and that we will take action in the end. And that’s why we will cover everything.”
– .
