Jens Spahn’s surrogacy scandal shines a light on a political class that has repeatedly shown contempt for the laws and standards it sets, argues columnist Brian Melican. Let it mark the beginning of more accountability in German public life.
In the end, it all happened much faster than expected.
Those who have observed Jens Spahn’s scandals in recent years may well have thought that he would try to ride this one out too – letting the sore point fester over the summer break in the hope that, eventually, the news cycle would move on.
That’s more or less what happened last summer, for instance, after Spahn failed to secure a majority in his parliamentary party to elect a judge to the Constitutional Court.
Yet even someone with Spahn’s enviable lack of compunction couldn’t square being publicly against surrogacy while spending thousands of dollars on an American surrogate mother. And so, mercifully, he resigned within days of this rank hypocrisy becoming known.
That I thought Spahn would cling on, however, says a lot about what we have come to expect of him – and of Germany’s political class more broadly.
Sadly, it has become so standard for our elected representatives to act in contravention of the rules and laws they make for us that I’d almost forgotten how angry we should be.
READ ALSO: Merz shuffles German government following Spahn's resignation
I’m not quite sure when we reached US-levels of shoulder-shrugging about corruption and double-standards in public life, but that’s where we are. My hunch is that levels of shamelessness have been so high for so long that we’ve simply become inured to it.
Scandalous Spahn
Let’s start with Spahn himself, a one-man scandal machine who managed to survive for over a decade despite a resignation-level rap-sheet.
To give just a few prior examples: He benefitted from extremely generous mortgage arrangements with a regional building society on whose advisory board he sat by virtue of being a member of Bundestag for the relevant constituency.
Then there were the mask deals. While serving as Health Minister during the Covid Pandemic, Spahn procured 5.6 billion masks for 5.9 billion euros, and at least some of which were sourced directly from his husband's company. Several CDU politicians were accused of pocketing hundreds of thousands of euros in related deals, and many of the masks later ended up being burned in an incineration plant.
Also related to the masks, Spahn directed millions of euros worth of contracts to logistics firm Fiege (from his home region) in spite of officials’ doubt about its suitability to stock medical masks.
Jens Spahn, then acting as Federal Minister of Health, puts on a mask following a press conference in 2021. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld
It’s a shame, actually, that Spahn went on such a happy occasion as becoming a father: there were plenty of resignation offences far more grievous in his political biography.
It is telling that he stumbled over surrogate parenting: as recently as this February, there were discussions in the CDU about the party’s stance on it – discussions on which Spahn was silent. Surely it might have been worthwhile positioning himself differently if, in his personal life, he was already using the services of a US-based surrogate mother?
READ ALSO: What are Germany's rules on having a baby through surrogacy?
This could have defused accusations of hypocrisy – and helped him further a cause in which he believes.
So why didn’t he even try to lay some groundwork? My hunch: Spahn had become so used to getting away with things that he simply assumed contravening the law of the land wouldn’t ruffle any feathers.
Hypocrisy in the Union
In a sense, it’s hard to blame him. “Do as I say, not as I do” seems to be an established way of life in Germany’s upper echelons.
Spahn’s supposedly ‘Christian’ CDU/CSU outfit is fit-to-bursting with conflicts of interest, insider trading, and all manner of scandal in which, even when they get caught with their hands in the till, up people’s skirts, or somewhere else inappropriate, our elected representatives still seem get away with it.
There was Philip Amthor, for instance, a ‘back to basics’- style young fogey who lobbied for a defence start-up in which he held a share – and is still going strong. Investigations against him were dropped because, apparently, his conduct was technically not illegal.
Or there’s Georg Nüßlein and Alfred Sauter, who made millions as mask-middlemen during the Covid pandemic. While they were eventually cajoled into resigning, they got to keep the money after the high court found that they were still entitled to the commission they made while sitting in Bundestag.
No wonder our politicians have become so shameless: And so no wonder that it’s not just the CDU/CSU who are at it, either.
Beyond the Union
It was the Social Democrats' (SPD) Gerhard Schröder who set the tone back in 2005 after heading straight out of the Chancellery and into a €500,000 per year gig helping Putin to sell gas to Germany.
READ ALSO: Berlin sceptical as Putin floats ex-German chancellor as Ukraine mediator
Ever since then, half of the SPD top-brass have had some kind of Russian connection, the most harmless of which consist in having accepted hospitality trips to swanky “forums” – and the most serious of which include setting up a phoney charity to get around US sanctions while building a pipeline straight from St. Petersburg to the Pomeranian coast. Yet shameless Manuela Schwesig is, somehow, still Minister President of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and a candidate for re-election this autumn.
No, accountability and credibility are not German politicians’ strong suits.
Then again, not much is demanded of them, either. I’ve been living in Germany for 20 years now, and every time I’ve expected a swell of public anger – such as that which swept over the UK during the MP’s expenses scandal (which led to changes in the law) – it’s never happened.
I remember, during the pandemic, watching an ARD documentary in which a camera team shadowed then SPD parliamentary chief Kevin Kuhnert and he was recorded discussing a contravention of Covid regulations to hold an in-person party meeting and thinking, “Uh-oh…” Nothing ever came of it.
Neither, a year on, when a photo surfaced of then Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and others not wearing masks on a plane in the same month face-covering regulations were tightened for public transport. I thought, “They’ve really done it now…”
Turns out: the German public doesn’t seem to care about rank hypocrisy. I write “seem”, because my hunch is that people do actually care – but that millions have come to the conclusion that those who govern us think it’s one rule for them and another for the rest of us.
Why there isn’t more outcry is a mystery to me. But there certainly is a lasting erosion of public trust and an anti-elite sentiment that benefits populists.
Anyone who’s ever tried to argue an AfD-sympathiser out of voting for the extremists by pointing out, say, the hypocrisy of Alice Weidel being anti-immigration and arch-Conservative while living in Switzerland with a Sri Lankan partner will certainly have heard the sardonic riposte: “Oh, and the established parties are so much better, are they?”
If it wants to survive, our political class could start by living up to its own standards. Jens Spahn’s resignation is a welcome step in this direction.
