Members of the Quandt family, which controls BMW, gave donations totaling €690,000 to the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Merkel was lobbying other EU leaders to block draft regulations for tougher carbon dioxide limits.
Details of the contributions were published on the Bundestag website a day after Germany delayed a decision on the emission standards at a meeting of EU environment ministers,
the
Financial Times
reported.
Johanna Quandt, widow of BMW leader Herbert Quandt, and her children Stefan and Susanne each gave the Christian Democratic Union €230,000 on Oct. 9, the
FT
article said. The three family members jointly own 46.7% of BMW, the article noted. A CDU statement said the Quandts have supported the party for many years.
A spokesman for the family told the
FT
, “The donations are in no way connected to industrial policies. They are not involved in political talks about emission regulations or anything like that.”
The
Wall Street Journal
reported
that the €690,000 total was the largest gift to a single German political party in years. Opposition parties protested the donations, the
Journal
reported. “[T]he timing of the donation and the government’s forceful lobbying have raised eyebrows,” the article said. (Sources:
Financial Times,
Oct. 16, 2013;
Wall Street Journal,
Oct. 16, 2013.)
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