Berlin prosecutors have launched a preliminary probe into mortgages that German finance minister Christian Lindner secured from a bank he praised last year in a video message as “congenial from the ground up”.
The video endorsement by the German minister was played last May at the 100th birthday party of the BB Bank.
Mr Lindner took out a mortgage with the bank in January 2021 for a Berlin villa. The purchase price was €1.65 million while the debt on the property, possibly to cover renovation costs, is listed as €2.35 million.
Two months after last May’s video greeting, Mr Lindner secured a second €450,000 mortgage with BB Bank on a property in Karlsruhe in southwest Germany.
Responding through his lawyer to questions from Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper, Mr Lindner, leader of the liberal Free Democratic Union (FDP), said he had not kept the matter secret because there was no obligation to disclose the link between mortgages and video.
His lawyer Christian Schertz said the first mortgage dates from long before his ministerial post and was granted with “typical market rates”.
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“Providing a brief greeting on anniversaries such as the centenary of a bank is part of the regular duties of a minister,” said Mr Schertz, adding that the minister views media reports on his mortgages “with composure”.
Berlin’s public prosecutor has already begun a preliminary probe, which does not mean a full investigation or that charges will follow. Nevertheless Mr Lindner may lose his parliamentary immunity if a full investigation follows into the matter.
The prosecutor said the probe is focusing on whether there was an initial suspicion of illegal advantage.
Section 331 of Germany’s criminal code imposes a fine or up to three years in prison for “an official (...) who demands, allows himself to be promised or accepts an advantage for himself or a third party for the performance of his duties”.
Opposition politicians from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) pounced on the claims as “strange”.
“I expect ministers to be more sensitive and avoid anything that may appear like a kickback deal,” said CDU politician Carsten Müller.
Senior FDP allies of Mr Lindner attacked the leaked news of the preliminary investigation as “an unparalleled serious violation” of his rights.
