Protective masks issue: Laschet calls for immediate resignations

The pressure on Union MEPs Löbel and Nüßlein is increasing to resign quickly. CDU chief Laschet said that ARD, they should “leave Parliament as soon as possible”. Nüßlein at least left the Union faction, but is still a member of parliament.

The federal president of the CDU, Armin Laschet, has asked the union politicians Nikolas Löbel (CDU) and Georg Nüßlein (CSU), involved in the “matter of the masks”, to resign immediately. Politicians try by all means to protect the people. “Whoever does business with this protection, who enriches himself personally with it, is not a representative of the people. And he must leave parliament as soon as possible,” Laschet said. ARD capital study.

He added: “The same applies to everyone, in all parties, including the Union: the representatives of the people cannot benefit from a crisis.” The deciding factor is “that the consequences are drawn quickly.” Trust is important now – “and trust has been damaged.”

“Terrible process”

The leader of the trade union faction Ralph Brinkhaus also referred to the Berlin report Opinion on the “matter of the mask” and called it a “terrible process” that is damaging the reputation of Parliament. He believes that it is “urgently necessary” for Löbel and Nüßlein to give up their seats in the Bundestag. It is a moral question for the two deputies how they deal with it.

Defense Minister Annegret Kamp-Karrenbauer (CDU) and CSU leader Markus Söder had previously taken a similar point of view. “Löbel and Nüßlein must resign completely and immediately give up their seats in the Bundestag,” demanded Kramp-Karrenbauer. Söder warned that the two MPs should “clear the table immediately.”

District association issues ultimatum

Löbel’s own district association, the Mannheim CDU, even gave the politician an ultimatum. A “withdrawal of all positions and mandates by March 31 at the latest” was necessary “to save everyone involved from an unnecessary hangover,” said a statement from the party’s district executive.

Löbel had previously announced that he would retire from politics. He will leave the Bundestag at the end of August and will no longer run for the next Bundestag. He also resigned from the Union faction. Löbel also resigned as district president of the CDU in Mannheim, but wants to remain a councilor until the end of August.

On Friday he admitted his involvement in business with protective corona masks. Löbel’s company received commissions of around 250,000 euros because it negotiated mask purchase contracts between a supplier in Baden-Württemberg and two private companies in Heidelberg and Mannheim.

“It remains a profit optimizer”

The opposition expressed a suspicion as to why Löbel wanted to remain a member of the Bundestag until the end of August. The chairman of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Dietmar Bartsch, said he was deciding “to resign from the Bundestag term for six months, obviously it has to do with pension rights. Still optimistic.”

The FDP is even asking for a parliamentary commission of inquiry to clarify the matter. “It is no longer about individual cases or just being scammed by the CDU and CSU MPs,” said Deputy Chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, Michael Theurer. “The credibility of the federal government, and indeed of the German state itself, is fundamentally at stake.”

Nüßlein also leaves the parliamentary group

Earlier, CSU MP Nüßlein had already announced his withdrawal from federal politics due to corruption investigations against him. He, too, is said to have benefited from commissions of up to 660,000 euros for the repair of masks. The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating Nüßlein, among other things, due to the initial suspicion of bribery and bribery of elected officials. Therefore, on Friday he had resigned from his position as the Union’s deputy parliamentary group and declared that he would not run for the Bundestag again.

Now Nüßlein resigned from the CDU / CSU parliamentary group with immediate effect. In a statement distributed by his lawyer, Nüßlein justified it by saying that he wanted to avoid “any political disadvantage” for his party.

However, he wants to keep his mandate in the Bundestag until the end of the legislative period, like Löbel. Nüßlein also stated that he hoped “that the initial suspicion of criminal acts directed against me will be refuted while I am a member of the German Bundestag.”