Germany: Cumcum is the big brother of CumEx. Again taxes have been reimbursed, although no entitlement for that did exist. The damage is about 28.5 billion euros and is therefore well twice as big as of CumEx. It is about that German companies are allowed to get dividends of their stock reimbursed, but not foreign ones. With this business a foreign company briefly transferred its shares to a German bank at the distribution day. In the years 2016 and 2017, the Ministry of Finance led by the CDU has sent a writing to the federal states, which should exculpate these businesses so that banks remain protected from recovery; only recently this was corrected. Like with CumEx, the CumCum offenses threaten to become time-barred unless investigations will finally be launched.
Austria: Although people tend to blame the ÖVP party for it, it was in deed the SPÖ which had invented the Austrian advertisment corruption, namely in 1990 in the municipal council of Vienna. Wener Faymann has continued this practices with public enterprises as a minister of transport and as a feder chancellor. In 2011 the public prosecutor had launched an investigation because of infidelity; there was even a parlamentarian fact-finding committee. Anyone who paid little had to expect headwind. When Mrs. Karin Kneissel (party-independent/FPÖ) shortened the advertisement budget, the publisher of the newspaper Österreich wrote openly she had to go away, said Kneissel to the investigative press platform Dossier.
Julian Assange is still imprisoned under inhuman conditions in Belmarsh. The extradition hearings would have needed to take place directly before the COP26 summit. However they have been delayed: “We have a lot to think about”. If his life is at threat in the United States, he should not be allowed to be extradited, no matter on why his life is at threat – because of a health issue or because of a planned assassination attempt. The tribunal has not even put at doubt that there was an assassination conspiracy by the CIA against him. There would have been sufficient reason to free him immediately because key accusations against him are already known to be fraudulent. The proceedings of the justice system against Assange appear to be partisan and they lack any justification.
Even the newly revised CAP will not meet the high goals of the European Green Deal (EGD). The EGD requires a reduction of nutrient losses by 50% like those seeping into ground water which would amount to a reduction of 20% in fertilizer use. However continued subsidies for stables contradict this while more extensive pasture farming would be necessary. A respective reduction in mineral fertilizer use would also be necessary. Germany wants to bound livestocks to the farming land area. Meeting a 50% reduction in pesticide use would require a respective information and education campaign as well as duties on pesticide use. The 1.1 million signatures of the bee ECI (European Citizen Initiative) demand an 80% reduction till 2030 and 100% till 2035, which would also accomodate to save biodiversity (1). Not even a ban on Glyphosate until 2022 is pending. According to renown scientists 18 studies in use continue to be unsound, 15 partially sound and only two fully sound (2). This even though there had been a successful EBI to uncover secret, paid industry studies, so that it would be possible to point out how defective they are. However the GAP will meet the goal to have 10% of the land for nature. While Germany seeks for 30% in ecological farming the GAP will require 25%.
Products linked to deforestation like beef, palm oil and cocoa shall be banned from entering the European Union under a new landmark legal proposal. However it still leaves out other fragile ecosystems, such as Brazil’s Cerrado savannah and peatlands in south-east Asia, argues the director of Mighty Earth Europe. The current proposal also does not apply to rubber. In order to successfully fight deforestation major markets like China and the US would need to follow suit and also clean up their supply chains. Between 1990 and 2008 the EU consumption led to 10% of global deforestation.
Germany has decided to ban palm oil in agrofuels until 2023. This has been an overdue decision. France has eliminated palm oil in biofuels back in 2020 and Austria in July 2021. However as far as known use of palm oil by power plants is not included in the new decision, nor palm oil as part of old chip fat (see: salveaselva.org).
