Pfizer and Microsoft sponsored party of new German health minister

Therefore, the party stated in their Guideline of the SPD party executive committee on cooperation with exhibitors and sponsors that “sponsorship is a permitted form of party funding”.

“Against the background of falling income and increasing expenses, sponsorship is essential for us. We understand sponsoring to mean offering companies and associations an effective advertising presence. In return, we receive a financial contribution or a material or service. Performance and consideration must be in an appropriate relationship to one another. […] The presentation as an exhibitor is the most common form of sponsorship at the SPD. The exhibitor area is part of the overall picture of a federal party conference. This is where the divisions of the party, party-affiliated organizations and non-governmental organizations as well as associations and commercial enterprises introduce themselves. […]

“The rent payments from exhibitors from the business sector and their associations help to finance the federal party conference. […] As a party, we are happy to open up for discussion. The purpose of the exhibitor area is the exchange of information and arguments in a personal conversation.”

In other words: Because it is elected by so few citizens and has so few members, the SPD’s income has to be paid by corporate lobbyists.

Such payments grant corporations access to the SPD delegates so that the lobbyists can lobby the delegates to advance their particular agendas.

The revival of the SPD has been a result of this considerable cash injection after it suffered a historic blow in the 2017 federal elections with the worst ever result since the Second World War. Its implosion was called a “bitter defeat” – something of an understatement as the party was trounced for the fourth Bundestag election in a row.

The SPD was established in 1863, and is the oldest political party represented in the Bundestag. It is also one of the earliest Marxist-influenced parties in the country, but no longer represents the workers. And the new health minister, Karl Lauterbach belongs to leftwing of the SPD.

In the 2021 German federal election, Lauterbach secured his return to the Bundestag. And in spite of not having been nominated for a top position in the SPD’s party list, Lauterbach was designated as Federal Minister of Health.

Together with Biontech, Pfizer has been producing an injection with unrestricted patent protection which was rigorously defended by the SPD even before the election. With a compulsory vaccination for health workers and perhaps soon a general vaccination requirement, Pfizer hopes that all citizens will be obliged to purchase its product, possibly every six months.

This explains the SPD’s choice for the Minister of Health: The inveterate pharmaceutical lobbyist Karl Lauterbach.

Extending the CDU’s lobbying power

Under the old Merkel administration, Microsoft, Google and Apple had access to all the health data of Germans and they had clearly hoped that this would continue under the SPD-led coalition even if they still have some lobbying power with Merkel’s party, the CDU.

Protests against the compulsory vaccination and Corona measures are spreading and the number of demonstrators is growing, especially in cities in North Rhine-Westphalia.

As reported by n-tv.de, spontaneous meetings, unannounced events and illegal gatherings continue to pick up speed. According to NRW’s CDU Interior Minister Reul, these protests are currently difficult for the police. He intends to counter the increasing radicalization with a “concept of zero tolerance”.

For Herbert Reul it is becoming too difficult to correctly assess the size of demonstrations against Corona measures in advance. In the past few days, the police had been surprised several times by the high number of participants. “On Monday evening we suddenly had 27 or 28 such unregistered and unannounced events that we didn’t even have on our radar. They got bigger and bigger,” a surprised Reul told Deutschlandfunk.

In the past, the police could always exactly predict the size of a rally. “That has become much more difficult in the last few weeks,” explained Reul. “There used to be calls for demonstrations, then people signed up, and you had a feeling for it, or more than a feeling of how many people were coming. Today there is a call and nobody logs on, they just come. Or it takes place spontaneously.”

This is evidently a headache for Reul who is the architect of plans to enact an assembly law for North Rhine-Westphalia together with the SPD against the “far-right”. But this is in fact aimed at vaccine critics.

“Right-wing extremist demonstrations can only be banned these days if there is a risk that Nazi rule will be glorified or the public peace will be disturbed,” under current legislation reported German daily Zeit. And anti-jab protests are becoming difficult to frame as a “Nazi” pastime.