German politicians get into hot water on holiday

Published: 26 Jul 09 11:27 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20090726-20833.html

One is in hot water after her car was stolen in Spain, another found himself in alligator-infested waters in Florida: the holiday season has been anything but relaxing for two German politicians.

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Health Minister Ulla Schmidt was under fire on Sunday after it emerged that thieves had made off with her €90,000 official Mercedes S-class during her holiday on the Costa Blanca in eastern Spain.

The minister flew to Alicante at her own expense but her driver drove the 2,387 kilometres (1,483 miles) from Berlin to assist her in carrying out some official duties, prompting outrage from the press and rival politicians.

The head of campaign group "The Taxpayers' Union", Reiner Holznagel, told mass circulation newspaper Bild am Sonntag, "We want an explanation as to why her official car had to be taken some 5,000 kilometres across Europe. Taxpayers' money should not be used for the comfort of a minister."

Schmidt's spokeswoman said she intended to use the car only for official functions such as a meeting on Monday with Germans living in Spain, but the head of the parliamentary budget committee said she would have to explain why she did not use an embassy vehicle.

The press was kinder to the former Bavarian state premier, Günther Beckstein, who said he "came within a whisker of being eaten by an alligator."

The 65-year-old was on a trip through the Florida everglades to observe alligators when their boat suddenly capsized. "Thank God no alligator attacked us," he told the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.

AFP (news@thelocal.de)

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18:15 July 26, 2009 by deRuiter

The minister flew to Alicante at her own expense but her driver drove the 2,387 kilometres (1,483 miles) from Berlin to assist her in carrying out some official duties, prompting outrage from the press and rival politicians. Hasn't this broad heart of rental cars? Hertz stop doing business in Germany? THE UNMITIGATED GAUL AND ARROGANCE OF Ulla Schmidt can only be matched by Al Gore living in a 40,000 square foot house and using monthly the amount of electricity of 15 normal houses in Tennessee or America's president forcing Americans into tiny tin pot, dangerous little cars while flitting round the coutnry in a jet for nonsense errands while he should be working. Vote out ALL politicians in the next elections and start from scratch, COPY HONDURAS WHICH ALLOWS ONLY ONE TERM PER PRESIDENT AND MEANS IT!

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21:48 July 26, 2009 by Cincinnatus

I think that the German government should send them both to the Everglades. We have so many gators, who do not get enough to eat. These two could make a real contribution to the animal kingdom, and at the same time raise the average IQ in Germany.

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10:26 July 28, 2009 by 0234maxwell

Lets not be too hasty to condem these gentle folk of the ministry if I was in a well paid job and didnt have to do a great deal for it I think I definately get a bit slack. The trick here is to have what the poms used to call time and motion studies to analyze just what a person does in one "working day" to see if they are worth keeping on or if someone else could manage the job say the PA that the minister has cut the payroll by more than half that way and to keep them on there toes make the studies totally random.

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