Child Porn Investigation: Merkel Cabinet Rife with Suspicion and Mistrust

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/suspicion-reins-in-merkel-cabinet-following-child-porn-fallout-a-954268.html



It is a disastrous start for Angela Merkel's new government: After details of a child pornography investigation were leaked, a cabinet member was forced to resign. Now, the chancellor's new cabinet is consumed by backbiting and mistrust.

Child Porn Investigation: Merkel Cabinet Rife with Suspicion and Mistrust
By Charles Hawley
February 18, 2014 – 06:06 PM

It was a difficult start to Chancellor Angela Merkel's third term. Coalition negotiations with the Social Democrats (SPD) following last fall's election proved challenging, with several weeks going by before Merkel's conservatives were finally able to come to terms with their center-left partners. And then the chancellor cracked her pelvis on a ski trip over New Year's.

Still, as 2014 began, the chancellor -- and the country at large -- was optimistic that the business of actually running the country could finally take center stage. Reimagining German foreign policy, introducing dual citizenship, fixing the problems with the country's turn toward renewable energies: There is plenty to do.

Now, though, the back burner is suddenly full. Over the weekend, Merkel was forced into an unwanted cabinet shuffle and her government is quickly sinking into a morass of mistrust, suspicion and backbiting. An investigation into recently resigned SPD parliamentarian Sebastian Edathy on suspicions that he possesses child pornography has reached the highest levels in Berlin -- and it is driving a wedge between Merkel's coalition partners.

On Tuesday evening, leaders from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, the Christian Social Union (the Bavarian sister party to the CDU) and the SPD are to gather in Berlin in an effort to pick up the pieces. It won't be easy. Prosecutors in Berlin announced on Tuesday that they were opening a preliminary investigation into the minister who resigned, Hans-Peter Friedrich of the CSU, for revealing confidential information regarding the Edathy investigation while he was interior minister last year. The man who made his indiscretion public, Thomas Oppermann, is the SPD's floor leader in parliament. Accusations of duplicity are flying.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. And behind it all, Goldman Sachs.