• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

03/15/2010

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, under fire from opposition politicians and media commentators for taking party donors and his partner Michael Mronz on official trips abroad, hit back at his critics over the weekend, dismissing the accusations as "slander" that was damaging Germany.

"Such slander by the opposition against a foreign minister while he is on a foreign trip in the interest of German jobs damages Germany," the leader of the country's pro-business Free Democrat Party (FDP) told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview published on Sunday. "Political culture has hit a low point when the opposition even attacks the relatives of political opponents for party political gain."

"I've got a very thick skin," the leader of Germany's pro-business FDP said. "Party political defamation campaigns just make me fight harder."

SPIEGEL reported last week that Westerwelle, who is also deputy chancellor in Angela Merkel's government, has been taking friends and party donors on official trips abroad, and that he took part in a ceremony that Mronz had helped organize to mark the opening of a luxury hotel in Bonn.

It also emerged last week that the manager of a company in which Westerwelle's brother, Kai Westerwelle, owns a stake was part of the business delegation accompanying the minister on a trip to Asia in January. Ralf Marohn, the majority owner and managing director of Far Eastern Fernost Beratungs- und Handels GmbH, a trading consultancy, was on Westerwelle's government jet for the four-day trip to Estonia, Japan and China. According to a corporate register seen by SPIEGEL ONLINE, Kai Westerwelle took a €15,000 ($20,600) stake in the consultancy in 2007.

The allegations, together with Westerwelle's controversial remarks about benefits paid to the long-term unemployed, have hit the FDP's opinion poll ratings ahead of a major regional election in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, in May.

Several media commentators say the accusations against Westerwelle are exaggerated, but that he hasn't done himself any favors with his shrill reaction to them.

The Financial Times Deutschland writes that Westerwelle has "a lot to learn."

"With every fresh tirade about supposed defamation, targeted campaigns and the ravages of the left-wing zeitgeist, Westerwelle reinforces the feeling that he might not be up to his job -- a feeling that he is trying to disprove.

"What has been totally ignored is that the foreign minister basically hasn't done anything dishonorable. Sure, the foreign minister's habit of taking large numbers of business friends from a private circle of acquaintances smacks of nepotism and should be stopped. But it's Westerwelle's excessive reaction that turns it into a political issue. His response is that of someone who refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem, and who doesn't want to admit that his opponents are at least partly right this time. Both are undesirable characteristics in a foreign minister."

"A certain measure of calmness and demonstrative understanding would take the sting out of the criticism. And it would show the world that he has what it takes to be Germany's top diplomat, despite all the criticism."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Who's advising the foreign minister when he invites TV show hosts, football coaches and the members of the jet set to the Foreign Ministry's official guesthouse and this is subsequently declared as political consultation? In the coming weeks Westerwelle will be spending less time abroad and more in the market squares of North Rhine-Westphalia. It will be an entertaining campaign. And once the election is over, the FDP will be asking itself: What will become of us with Westerwelle?"

Conservative Die Welt writes:

"The accusation that he has been taking FDP party donors on foreign trips is silly. Sigmar Gabriel (editor's note: the leader of the opposition center-left Social Democrats) is welcome to give an assurance that SPD donors won't be allowed on his government jet when he becomes chancellor. Let's see how much money he'll get in his election campaign. Only if Westerwelle's partner Michael Mronz had held talks about the football World Cup in Brazil would the criticism have been justified. But he didn't. The only thing that was very problematic was when the manager of a small company in which his brother owns a stake came along on a trip to China. The foreign minister wants to help the small business sector? For that he could have invited any number of businessmen who don't have a Westerwelle stake."

Left-wing Berliner Zeitung writes:

"You're right, Herr Westerwelle. It's a low point of political culture. A low point has indeed been reached when the German Foreign Minister takes economic delegations on foreign trips that on closer inspection turn out to be liberal old boys' networks. You said the 'slander' -- you meant the criticism -- would damage democracy. With respect, that is nonsense. If anyone has been damaged, it is you, Herr Westerwelle. And you're the one who caused it."