German minister defends flights

Germany's embattled defence minister, Mr Rudolf Scharping, yesterday denied allegations that he used government airplanes for private trips.

Mr Scharping, presenting a parliamentary committee with details of his flights during the past two years, denied that he visited his girlfriend in Frankfurt using air-force planes.

"I kept strictly to all the rules . . . I see no reason to resign," he said during a break from questioning. The investigation will continue tomorrow.

Mr Scharping has grown increasingly isolated within his own party in the past week, since the German media began querying his official flights. Of particular interest was the apparent increase in flights in the past year to Frankfurt, home of his new girlfriend, Countess Kristina Pilati von Thassul zu Daxberg-Borgreve.

Mr Scharping said he had made 349 official flights since he took office almost two years ago, and said his predecessor, Christian Democrats political Mr Volker Rⁿhe, made 361 flights in just 18 months.

Mr Scharping said he paid for all personal flights himself.

The Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schr÷der, who last week made a thinly veiled threat to fire Mr Scharping, said he believed his defence minister was telling the truth.

"I don't have the slightest reason to doubt that," said Mr Schr÷der before yesterday's committee session. Seven ministers have left the cabinet since the government took office in 1998 and Mr Schr÷der can ill afford another resignation.

The Social Democrats (SPD) chairman, Mr Klaus Muenterfering, said the "last chapter" in the so-called "Luftwaffe affair" was closed.

The parliamentary committee will tomorrow examine Mr Scharping's list of flights. The SPD's Mr Helmut Wieczorek, chairman of the committee, said: "Mr Scharping is, and remains, defence minister." However, opposition members of the committee said they would be examining irregularities on the flight list.

Mr Scharping's difficulties have compounded the political difficulties facing Mr Schr÷der.

He had hoped to reach a consensus with the opposition over future immigration policy to prevent it becoming an election issue next year. Now he faces internal revolt from the Green Party over the proposed policy.

Many of his own backbenchers humiliated the Chancellor by voting against deploying German troops in Macedonia, forcing him to rely on the opposition to achieve the parliamentary majority he needed.

Days before, Mr Scharping allowed a gossip magazine to print pictures of him "so in love", frolicking in a Majorca swimming pool with his girlfriend, a twice-married divorce lawyer who gained her an aristocratic title by marriage.

He agreed at the weekend that the photographs were an error of judgment.