Far-right German EU lawmaker caught up in contract fraud probe – POLITICO

Maximilian Krah, a far-right EU lawmaker from Germany, is facing scrutiny from the EU prosecutor’s office over potential contract fraud. 

According to three lawmakers from Krah’s Identity & Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is reviewing Krah’s role in a public contract bid following an investigation from the EU’s anti-fraud office, known as OLAF. EPPO, unlike OLAF, has the authority to bring criminal charges.

The case centers on the process Krah used to award a communications contract for his ID group. According to a letter sent to OLAF and seen by POLITICO, Krah allegedly conspired with several German firms to rig the bidding for Polifakt, a company linked to him. The contract was ultimately halted but could have been worth tens of thousands of euros in EU funds.

OLAF later sent a letter to EPPO, dated March 14, saying the office had closed its probe but suggesting the prosecutor look into the matter, according to two people who have seen the memo.

“It appears that the facts may constitute potential criminal conduct (by Maximilian Krah) to be qualified as fraud affecting the financial interests of the European Union,” it reads, according to a European Parliament official who reviewed it.

Krah is adamant that the case against him is a fabricated plot to damage him politically — part of a broader power struggle among the nine members of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Brussels, who have clashing views on China and on Russia’s war in Ukraine. And it comes just as AfD prepares to pick its top candidates for the 2024 EU election. 

“There are obviously people who don’t like to see me [ranked] one or two, and that creates attacks,” Krah said.

“Those attacks don’t come from the political opposition,” he added. “They come from the inside. Someone has constructed these accusations. These are constructed accusations.” 

Krah argued he’s being treated as “guilty until proven innocent.”

Both OLAF and EPPO refused to comment on individual cases when asked by POLITICO.

€100,000 contract 

The case started, Krah said, with an anonymous tip-off sent to OLAF, a translated version of which was seen by POLITICO. 

The letter links Krah and his chief of staff, Jörg Sobolewski, to Polifakt, as well as the two other companies involved in the contract tender — Hinato and Brandmarker. 

The letter also said the contract “involves several hundred thousand euros,” but Krah said the ceiling was €100,000.

Sobolewski also denied any wrongdoing, arguing he and Krah only suggested company names to officials in the ID group’s secretariat, who then handled the tender procedure. The pair pushed back against allegations in the tip-off to OLAF that there were any special connections between them and Polifakt, saying it is just one of a small number of PR firms that works with the AfD.

While the pair acknowledged that the language in the three offers is similar, they argued that the companies were likely to have used the same template for applying for the contract as they used the same translator. “I have nothing to do with it,” Krah said.

“The question is: Do they only share the template? Or did they also make negotiations on the price?” Krah asked. “This is the only open question. But if they did negotiations on the prices, then it’s their misbehavior and not mine.”

Josef Konrad, a manager with Polifakt, said there was no malicious intent or wrongdoing from his company, “other than using the same template due to the complicated nature of the tender procedure, which is all written in legal English.”

Brandmarker did not respond to a request for comment. Attempts to reach Hinato were unsuccessful.

Either way, Krah stressed, no money has been spent and the procedure was ultimately stopped at his request. 

But as it’s EPPO’s responsibility to look into the case before dismissing it, Krah acknowledged he now has a political problem. He has already been suspended by the ID group since February 8 due to the OLAF probe. 

“I am completely in a Kafkaesque situation,” he said.

Vendetta 

Krah hinted the allegations of fraud against him might come from Nicolaus Fest, another AfD lawmaker in Brussels, who has been under fire within the AfD party for refusing to pay financial contributions to the national party. 

The AfD delegation’s acting leader, MEP Joachim Kuhs, even openly said he thought Fest was behind the anonymous tip-off to OLAF.

Fest pushed back against this. 

“Mr. Krah is always trying to pretend as if this is a personal vendetta,” Fest said. “I have nothing to do with the OLAF case, and I’m certainly not the person who rigged this tender.”

Fest said the allegation that he had tipped off OLAF was “nonsense,” adding that the original letter contained “some insider knowledge I could not possess.”

Separately, the AfD has started a procedure to expel Fest from the party, according to an internal document seen by POLITICO. The document cites “party-damaging behavior due to the non-payment of mandate fees and untrue, dishonorable allegations.” 

Fest confirmed to POLITICO that a procedure was underway to remove him but said he would appeal and that a final decision is unlikely to be made until the end of the year. 

Fest has been refusing to pay contributions to the party after being upset about the leak of a message he sent in which he described the late European Parliament President David Sassoli as a “filthy pig.”

Sarah Wheaton and Lili Bayer contributed reporting.