Wasteful Spending: Losing Money Unnecessarily

When it comes to procuring masks during the Corona crisis, Jens Spahn has been many things. During the pandemic, the then Health Minister was the top crisis manager who took care of purchasing himself. Later, when it became clear that, under Spahn’s responsibility, far too many masks were purchased at far too high prices and that dubious suppliers with connections to the CDU and CSU were benefiting from fat delivery contracts, he became a defender on his own behalf.

But one thing Spahn has never been: an expert on this topic. But that’s what it says on the sign behind which the Union parliamentary group leader sits this Monday in the semicircle of the European Hall in the Paul-Löbe-Haus: “Spahn, expert”.

Spahn is one of six experts invited by the study commission to deal with the pandemic for its last meeting of the year. The commission, set up on the initiative of the Union and the SPD, is intended to unearth lessons from the corona crisis. This hearing is primarily about the chaotic procurement of masks and other protective equipment in spring 2020. A topic for which the Greens and the Left would like to set up an entire investigative committee – but for which the necessary votes are missing in the Bundestag, at least if you don’t want any from the AfD. Therefore, for the time being only this one appointment remains in the study commission.

Spahn now has some routine in answering questions about why he had 5.8 billion masks procured for 5.9 billion euros, more than two thirds of which ended up in the trash or will soon end up. The business has also been a topic of discussion in Parliament, for example in the Budget Committee, which meets privately.

But there is a special feature of his statement in the Enquete Commission: For the first time, Spahn meets his most dangerous critics in a public meeting – Oliver Sievers from the Federal Audit Office, who has complained about the “overprocurement” of masks in several reports since 2021. But above all to Margaretha Sudhof, who meticulously investigated the mask business as a special representative on behalf of Spahn’s successor Karl Lauterbach (SPD). In her report, ex-State Secretary Spahn attested that, despite a lack of expertise in his ministry, she had taken over the mask purchase out of selfishness and political ambition and had concluded disadvantageous deals for the federal government with some suppliers with contacts in the Union – which resulted in a “drama worth billions” for taxpayers. When Sudhof’s report became public this summer, it put the Union faction leader in a lot of trouble. However, the investigator was only allowed to speak in the budget committee behind closed doors. There was also a fuss about the permission to testify that the Ministry of Health issued to the retired civil servant.

Now, on the study commission, Sudhof sits right next to Spahn. She has the say even before Spahn. The administrative lawyer, who is a member of the SPD, is clearly trying not to target the ex-CDU minister personally. Their criticism is aimed more generally at the Ministry of Health and its current management: Even today, many of the documents relating to the ministry’s mask business are held by a private service provider, which leads to a lack of transparency. The ministry’s legal representation in the processes in which mask suppliers are currently suing the federal government for 2.3 billion euros plus interest due to contracts that have not been fulfilled and paid is also not particularly “professional”. Masks would still be delivered if the ministry reached settlements with complaining suppliers.

Spahn, in turn, also uses the explanations that he has often cited in defense as an expert. Observers of the matter can now have their say: At that time there was an exceptional situation, everyone in the world wanted masks, there were “Wild West” methods on the market, planes with masks were intercepted. “Nobody in the ministry” wanted to buy masks, Spahn asserts. You had to buy things yourself because “nothing came” from other procurement authorities, such as the Ministry of Defense. Basically, the federal government decided everything together during the crisis.

Many well-known arguments are also exchanged in the question and answer sessions. Members of the Union want to know from Sudhof why she did not personally interview Spahn for her report – which she justified by saying that Spahn’s press spokesman had pointed out that Spahn had already commented on the purchase of masks in his book about the pandemic. The AfD asked what the ex-minister knew about findings that the virus came from a Chinese laboratory – which has nothing to do with the topic of the meeting. The SPD is careful to only ask questions that could be critical for the coalition partner’s parliamentary group leader in a gentle dose, but at the same time to support Sudhof. And the Left is stuck on the question of what role Spahn played in ensuring that the Ministry of Health granted a fixed price of 4.50 euros per mask in a special purchasing process that gave rise to dozens of lawsuits.

On the other hand, it gets louder especially when it is the Greens’ turn to ask questions. In the mask affair, the Greens have positioned themselves as Spahn’s sharpest and loudest critics, and a kind of personal duel has developed between their MP Paula Piechotta and the ex-minister. Budget expert Piechotta Spahn is now accusing Spahn of having billions of euros “unwisely chasing tax money down the chimney” with his purchasing decisions during the pandemic, and that his ministry has lost its sense of money and has purchased “usurious masks”. Piechotta notes that some companies that did not provide the required services later received favorable settlements. In addition, Spahn’s “unorthodox communication”, for example via WhatsApp or via an email address in his Bundestag office, prevents the transactions from being fully verified.

Spahn is no less keen on this: he only communicated via WhatsApp in one or two cases. The Greens supported most of the decisions during the pandemic; the costs for the masks only accounted for 1.5 percent of all federal spending on the fight against the coronavirus. When Piechotta wanted to know in the last round of questions whether he had personally “enriched” himself through contracts with companies with good contacts in the Union, Spahn angrily answered in the negative: He had already answered Piechotta’s question twice in the budget committee, and now the “defamatory speculations” should be put to an end.

Then, after almost three and a half hours, the hearing is over. What remains is the certainty that a one-off meeting of a study commission can do little to advance the investigation into the mask deals that has been going on for years and to clarify the still open questions about deals with some companies – unlike a committee of inquiry that can request documents from the ministries and question a large number of witnesses. In the end, the invited experts and the MPs only agree on one point: If there were a new pandemic, Germany would be no better prepared today than it was in 2020.