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Steinbrück urges tougher income disclosure rules

Published: 8 Oct 12 10:59 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20121008-45419.html

SPD chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrück, who came under fire last week for failing to disclose details about his additional earnings, called Sunday for parliamentarians to face tougher rules on reporting extra income.

Appearing on the Günther Jauch talk show on state broadcaster ARD, Steinbrück rejected mounting criticism over his personal finances, but said an independent auditor had been hired to review his records and dispel any lingering doubts.

In a statement on his Bundestag website, the SPD candidate said the audit would prove that “the attacks from within the ranks of the CDU/CSU and FDP on my credibility are baseless, hypocritical and duplicitous.”

Steinbrück also announced plans to back tougher earnings reporting rules that would require all members of the Bundestag to report the source and substance of supplementary income “down to the last cent.”

In information posted on his webpage, Steinbrück claimed to have given around 80 paid lectures and speeches since 2009, which are thought to have netted him at least €500,000 in income. Yet many of those entries list the agency that arranged the lectures, not the actual client.

A report published Sunday in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper said Steinbrück had been cashing in on five-figure paychecks for speeches to the finance industry since 2009.

The SPD politician has rejected accusations that he enjoys a cosy relationship with the banking lobby, but rival conservatives have been quick to question the ex-finance minister’s credibility.

“That Mr. Steinbrück of all people is trying to cast himself as a champion of transparency has a special kind of humour,” the general secretary of the CSU Bavarian conservatives, Alexander Dobrindt, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Sunday.

DPA/DAPD/The Local/arp

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

15:31 October 8, 2012 by lucksi
But he can't list his bribes, erm sorry, speakers fees because he would totally need to ask permission from those who gave them to him. Sounds plausible, right?
17:10 October 8, 2012 by twisted
What the laws OUGHT to say, in all countries, is that members of Parliament, members of congress or whatever cannot be paid for any outside activity, that they are full-time members of the government and that their sole income should be limited to that paid by the government. Then and only then can one eliminate any chances of conflict of interest. On the other hand, I am sure they would find ways around any such laws.
05:44 October 9, 2012 by sonriete
For once I agree with Alexander Dobrindt.
11:02 October 13, 2012 by sberlusconi77
As you know I am an ex Prime Minister of the Grande reppublica italiana and I have met Peter on one or two l occasions in Liechtenstein .

he seemed a very nice man and and whilst i only spoke to him briefly whilst we were both in a bank lobby i did not see anythiong to persuade me that this man is in any way a crook . thank you
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