GERMANY: German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder fired his gaffe-prone Defence Minister, Mr Rudolf Scharping, yesterday after he admitted receiving payments from a PR agent with contacts to defence firms, writes Derek Scally, in Berlin
Mr Scharping is the eighth ministerial departure from Chancellor Schröder's cabinet and an unwelcome setback just two months before September's election.
"I will ask the president to relieve Mr Scharping of his duties as defence minister," said a stony-faced Mr Schröder yesterday afternoon. "The necessary basis for co-operation in government is, in my opinion, no longer there." He announced that Mr Peter Struck, the SPD parliamentary leader, would be the new defence minister.
Mr Scharping said he was leaving office "with my head high and walking tall". "My behaviour conformed with the law at all times. I still see no reason to resign but I am not clinging to my seat," he told a press conference in Berlin yesterday.
His departure came just hours after yesterday's issue of Stern magazine hit the news-stands, alleging that he received payments totalling €70,000 from a Frankfurt-based PR consultant, Mr Moritz Hunzinger.
The magazine published documents which it said showed Mr Scharping accepted the money in exchange for making speeches and meeting defence firms seeking government contracts that were represented by Mr Hunzinger.
"I never demanded nor received any services. Nor do I need an agent to organise talks with the defence industry. Such meetings take place all the time," he said.
He said all payments covered activities before 1998, when he became defence minister, so did not breach guidelines that forbid government ministers from having other sources of income while in office.
Mr Scharping denied there was anything unusual in the payments, and said all money he received was correctly registered and taxed.
He added that he had forwarded a large portion of money he received to charitable organisations.
He denied allegations that he accepted around €27,000 in designer clothes from the PR consultant and called the Stern report "morally questionable".
Yesterday's revelations were not new, he said, adding that the information had been offered for sale to other media organisations since 1998.
Stern defended its publication of the story yesterday, saying their journalists had checked all payments.
"We gave Mr Scharping over a week to respond to the allegations, without success," said Mr Thomas Osterkorn, editor-in-chief of Stern.
Ahead of Mr Schröder's announcement, the leader of the Christian Social Union Bavarian premier Mr Edmund Stoiber called Mr Scharping's departure "long overdue", adding: "This is a government on its way out. It shows that the chancellor has completely lost the ability to act."
Mr Scharping was in no doubt that he was little-loved by his colleagues and the German public.
The Social Democrats are trailing the conservatives by 4 per cent in the opinion polls and the party's central committee decided in an emergency sitting yesterday that Mr Scharping was too much of a liability in the last two months before election day.
Mr Scharping's successor, Mr Struck, has earned respect as an uncompromising party whip and is a loyal ally of Mr Schröder.
He is the son of a car mechanic from the western city of Goettingen and is seen as a steady hand.
As party whip, Mr Struck kept a tight leash on the some 300-strong Social Democrat parliamentary party.
This allowed Mr Schröder to present a united front on difficult issues such as tax and pension reform, spending cuts and Germany's military role.