"fireplace gate" in Germany or burnt millions from "Gazprom"

In Germany, a serious scandal flares up. He is associated with a fund that was created to circumvent US-imposed sanctions by companies involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2.

How tells Bild, the Foundation for Climate and Ecology Protection, was founded two years ago at the initiative of the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Manuela Schwesig. It was intended to help companies involved in the construction of the Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 bypass US sanctions.

The project for the construction of a gas pipeline after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was frozen, then the pipeline was blown upbut the foundation is still active today. Although back in May it was reported that it should be liquidated.

The scandal began to gain momentum after it became known about the mysterious disappearance of last year’s tax return of the fund. On March 3, the head of the tax service, Uwe Olszewski, confessed at a special meeting of committees on law and finance: the declaration was burned by a local employee of the financial inspectorate … in a fireplace.

However, it turned out that the official burned not one tax return of the fund, but three. They all concern a €20 million donation from the Kremlin’s Gazprom group. Half of the amount was supposed to be paid as gift tax, but in April last year it became known that this had not happened by then. It is not known for certain what other documents got into the fireplace insert. The employee of the financial inspection says that the thickness of the stack of documents was about 1 cm.

Uwe Olszewski said that he had never before, in his many years of service, encountered something like this.

Heiko Geue, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s finance minister, who is believed to have contributed to the formation of the “climate fund”, assured that the fireplace incident was “absolutely an isolated incident.”

Green Party chief investigator Gunnes Damm said: “The more you dig into the climate fund swamp, the deeper it gets”…

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