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From the BBC: chancellor Merkel has called off a trip to Italy in expectation of a press conference called in by the federal president, Christian Wulff, which was announced for 11 AM, just ten minutes from now. Yesterday, public prosecutors had filed to parliament a request to lift the president's immunity.
Wulff has been in a media row since December, when rumors came up that during his time as holder of chief executive office in the state of Lower Saxony, he may have been lying (or telling half-truths) to the state diet over a question regarding his associations with regional economy big boss Roland Geerkens. Since then, several occasions have been made public which revealed that Wulff probably accepted a number of favours from friends in big business during that time, mostly in the region of free holiday trips. Around new year, his personal associate and long time head of office Olaf Glaeseker was sacked for reasons undeclared and has since come under criminal scrutiny. While for a time it seemed these allegations and Glaeseker's own dirty underwear had largely moral consequences, and shed but a bad light on the highest office in state, yesterday's motion to the federal state diet on behalf of public prosecution to lift the president's immunity indicated that criminal investigations were imminent.
While the threshold from moral to criminal badassness is rather sketchy here and I'm still trying to figure out what crucial line he may or may not have crossed, the political consequences seem to be clear - a resignation is imminent. After Horst Köhler's short-noticed submission in 2010 (over his publicly declaring specific foreign policy goals of Germany which shocked an audience obviously unaware of official NATO strategic aims, such as the securing of our way of life and specifically of necesary natural ressources abroad), Wulff's imminent resignation is now the second interruption of the highest office in a row, also the second during a single chancellor's term since Merkel was re-elected in 2009.
Pure instability. Let the lootings begin. Oh, and discuss.
Wulff has been in a media row since December, when rumors came up that during his time as holder of chief executive office in the state of Lower Saxony, he may have been lying (or telling half-truths) to the state diet over a question regarding his associations with regional economy big boss Roland Geerkens. Since then, several occasions have been made public which revealed that Wulff probably accepted a number of favours from friends in big business during that time, mostly in the region of free holiday trips. Around new year, his personal associate and long time head of office Olaf Glaeseker was sacked for reasons undeclared and has since come under criminal scrutiny. While for a time it seemed these allegations and Glaeseker's own dirty underwear had largely moral consequences, and shed but a bad light on the highest office in state, yesterday's motion to the federal state diet on behalf of public prosecution to lift the president's immunity indicated that criminal investigations were imminent.
While the threshold from moral to criminal badassness is rather sketchy here and I'm still trying to figure out what crucial line he may or may not have crossed, the political consequences seem to be clear - a resignation is imminent. After Horst Köhler's short-noticed submission in 2010 (over his publicly declaring specific foreign policy goals of Germany which shocked an audience obviously unaware of official NATO strategic aims, such as the securing of our way of life and specifically of necesary natural ressources abroad), Wulff's imminent resignation is now the second interruption of the highest office in a row, also the second during a single chancellor's term since Merkel was re-elected in 2009.
Pure instability. Let the lootings begin. Oh, and discuss.
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