Christian Lindner is said to have had close contact with the Porsche boss during the coalition negotiations. This was announced by Oliver Blume himself at a works meeting. The finance minister has now rejected the allegations of lobbying.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner has once again rejected the accusation that he was in close contact with the Porsche automobile group during the coalition negotiations. The FDP politician told the broadcasters RTL/ntv on Tuesday: “My position on so-called synthetic fuels, i.e. climate-friendly liquid fuels in combustion engines, has been known for years. There was a phone call with Mr. Blume in October 2021.” The coalition negotiations between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP began on October 21, 2021.
The background is a report by the ZDF satirical magazine “Die Anstalt” from last Tuesday. According to this, Porsche boss Oliver Blume is said to have said to employees at a works meeting at the end of June that Porsche played a “very large part” in the fact that the further use of synthetically produced e-fuels for combustion engines “was included in the coalition agreement”.
After the report had caused some excitement, a Porsche spokesman said on Friday when asked that the exchange in question “didn’t exist like that”. Blume apologized over the weekend. He chose “wrong words”, said the 54-year-old of the “Bild am Sonntag”.
Lindner now emphasized that there was “a single phone call with Mr. Blume”. The Porsche boss also spoke to the Greens.
At the end of June, there was a dispute within the traffic light coalition about a ban on new registrations of combustion cars from 2035 at EU level. Lindner had rejected the ban plans. In the coalition negotiations in autumn 2021, the traffic light had agreed to ban new registrations for combustion engines from 2035 – but there should be an exception for cars that can only be operated with e-fuels.
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For the wedding of Christian Lindner (FDP), Friedrich Merz and his wife took their own private plane from Berlin to the North Sea island of Sylt. He claims the plane uses less fuel than any company car. However, a fact check shows that this is not true.
A satirical program reports explosive statements by the Porsche boss Oliver Blume. It is about political influence and a close exchange between Blume and FDP leader Christian Lindner in the coalition negotiations. Blume apologizes – only for his choice of words.
