Olaf Scholz Did Not Care to Visit FIU

The raid on the German Ministry of Finance was the subject of a special meeting of the Bundestag Finance Committee this week.

The background to the search are investigations into employees of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), who are said to have failed to forward information on terrorist financing to the judiciary and the police in good time.

The FIU is assigned to the Ministry of Finance. The statement by Federal Finance Minister and SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz that he had never been to the FIU in Cologne caused a surprise.

According to State Secretary for Finance Wolfgang Schmidt, the Federal Ministry of Finance has no specialist supervision over the FIU, but only legal supervision. According to a report by WirtschaftsWoche, there is also a different assessment of this. Schmidt’s statement applies to operational business, but the ministry also has specialist supervision in strategic issues.

“The myth that the BMF has no technical supervision over the FIU has been refuted,” said FDP financial expert Frank Schäffler to WirtschaftsWoche. “Olaf Scholz is responsible for the organizational deficiencies of the FIU.”