Jan 12, 2021 German Chancellor Angela Merkel is critical of Twitter for blocking President Donald Trump's Twitter account, with her top spokesman calling the move 'problematic.' 'The right to freedom of opinion. Jan 11, 2021 Germany and France attacked Twitter Inc. And Facebook Inc. President Donald Trump was shut off from the social media platforms, in an extension of Europe’s battle with big tech.
Germany
The German chancellor has appeared at a parliamentary inquiry to defend her decision to lobby on behalf of the disgraced banking firm Wirecard in China. The scandal is one of Germany's biggest ever fraud cases.
Angela Merkel appears before the Wirecard hearing
Chancellor Angela Merkel has told the German Bundestag that there was no reason to believe that Wirecard was committing fraud in 2019, when she lobbied on behalf of the now insolvent Bavarian company during an official trip to China.
'Despite the press reports, there was no reason to assume there were serious irregularities at Wirecard at the time,' she told a parliamentary inquiry during a hearing on Friday.
Merkel has become the fourth senior government politician to be questioned by the cross-party committee of parliamentarians since last year, when it emerged that there was a €1.9 billion ($2.3 billion) hole in the former DAX-listed company's finances.
CEO Markus Braun remains in custody, accused of fraud, market manipulation, and money-laundering, while COO Jan Marsalek has gone into hiding, reportedly in Belarus, and is now on Europol's wanted list. Investors in the company are thought to have lost most of their money.
German chancellor facing tough questions over Wirecard
Helping German business interests
Merkel insisted on Friday that promoting German firms hoping to break into the Chinese market was a normal part of her state trips to Beijing, and that 'Wirecard AG did not enjoy any special treatment during the trip,' the DPA news agency reported.
At the time, Wirecard was planning to take over a Chinese financial tech company named AllScore Financial. The company has since been criticized for aggressively acquiring other businesses, often at above market value, to disguise its own failure to grow organically.
At least some of the opposition politicians on the inquiry were dissatisfied with the chancellor's answers. Fabio De Masi, of the socialist Left party, said Merkel's testimony still left 'many open questions.'
'When you visit the most powerful man in China, you don't lobby for any french-fry stand,' he told Reuters news agency. 'And you don't have 10 or 15 issues, but two or three.'
The Green party's Danyal Bayaz said that the timing of Merkel's trip was crucial, because, he told reporters, by then there were already publicly-available warnings that the company was not right.
Before Friday's hearing, Florian Toncar, parliamentarian for the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), said Merkel was unwittingly complicit in creating a situation where Wirecard's fraud could continue without scrutiny.
'I think not deliberately, not intentionally, but in fact, the chancellor supported — in effect at least — the continuation of the balance sheet manipulation,' he told DW Business. 'And this is, of course, politically a mistake.'
Other observers have criticized the German government's role in promoting and protecting Wirecard. Hedge fund manager and founder of Safkhet Capital Fahmi Quadir told DW Business that at the time Wirecard had 'the confidence of the support of the German government.'
Quadir, who appeared before the Bundestag's Wirecard committee herself, says the failure of authorities to address allegations of irregularities led Wirecard executives to act with impunity.
'They really felt that they could get away with everything because every time something new came out, it's almost as though it didn't happen. It was simply forgotten,' she said. 'These various allegations were never really properly investigated by the securities regulator or by the Bavarian prosecutor.'
Wirecard: Was there ever a will to investigate?
Lobbied by a lobbyist
For many, the Wirecard affair has illustrated the culture of complicity that exists between blue-chip German businesses and the political establishment.
Merkel's former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has come under particular scrutiny, as he was a lobbyist for Wirecard in 2019. Merkel confirmed to the committee on Friday that she had a 45-minute conversation with zu Guttenberg before her trip, but could no longer remember whether Wirecard had been mentioned.
'For me it is normal to accept requests for conversations from former members of my government,' Merkel said.
This week has been considered the climax of the Wirecard parliamentary inquiry, which has already convened for more than 300 hours and reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz appeared before the committee on Thursday to defend his own position as ultimate head of Germany's financial oversight authority, BaFin, which came under special criticism following the scandal.
Trump And Angela Merkel Twitter
Scholz, who is running as a Social Democrat chancellor candidate in this year's election, said he had implemented reforms and strengthened BaFin's powers as a direct consequence of last year's events.
© Steve Parsons-WPA Pool/Getty Images Steve Parsons-WPA Pool/Getty Images- German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes Twitter's decision to block President Donald Trump's Twitter account.
- 'The right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance,' Merkel's chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said on Monday.
- The company said it had banned the president's account because he risked inciting further violence after a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is critical of Twitter for blocking President Donald Trump's Twitter account, with her top spokesman calling the move 'problematic.'
'The right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance,' the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said on Monday at a news conference in comments reported by Reuters.
'Given that, the chancellor considers it problematic that the president's accounts have been permanently suspended,' he said.
Twitter on Friday permanently suspended Trump's Twitter account, which he used as a primary communication tool throughout his presidency, ultimately gaining 70 million followers and sometimes tweeting dozens of times a day.
The company said it had banned the president's account because he risked inciting further violence days after a group of his supporters stormed the US Capitol as lawmakers were gathered to certify President-elect Joe Biden's election victory.
Facebook and Instagram also blocked the president's accounts, but Twitter's decision seemed particularly consequential because it was the president's main communication tool.
Merkel's intervention highlights a growing unease among European countries about Twitter's decision on Friday to permanently suspend Trump's account, with the governments of France and the UK among those questioning the decision.
Clement Beaune, France's junior minister for European Union Affairs, advocated new regulation for private tech companies.
'This should be decided by citizens, not by a CEO,' Beaune told Bloomberg TV this week. 'There needs to be public regulation of big online platforms.'
Matt Hancock, a UK minister, said on Sunday that the decision by social-media companies to ban Trump's accounts raised a 'very big question' in terms of regulation because it meant they were making editorial decisions.
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny called it 'an unacceptable act of censorship.'
'This precedent will be exploited by the enemies of freedom of speech around the world,' he tweeted.
Angela Merkel Twitter 57
'In Russia as well. Every time when they need to silence someone, they will say: 'this is just common practice, even Trump got blocked on Twitter.'