From our correspondent
BERLIN – Again this year at the end of July, Angela Merkel did not want to give up the first of the Bayreuther Festspiele, the Wagnerian festival which takes place every year in Bavaria on the legendary Grünen Hugel, in the theater built according to the directives of the great composer. With her, for the new staging of Parsifal directed by Pablo Heras-Casado, German ministers, entrepreneurs and celebrities. Accompanied as always by her husband, Joachim Sauer, from whom she actually lives apart and who is the real melomaniac of the two, the former chancellor appeared in an excellent mood, wrapped in a turquoise silk deux pièces, blazer and long skirt, and above all with perfect hairstyle and bright make-up.
Mrs. Merkel cares a lot about her hair and her appearance. So much so that since she left the stationery in 2021 she has spent almost 55,000 euros on hairdressing and makeup. Not from her pocket of course, but from that of the government and ultimately the German taxpayer.
The revelations of the Tagesspiegel newspaper cause some confusion in Germany, which by invoking the Freedom of Information Act forced the Berlin chancellery to disclose the documents relating to Merkel’s expenses, which by law has an office with nine people, service car, escort and a budget that covers the expenses of all his commitments and travels, whether private or public. No former chancellor, says the Berlin newspaper, has spent as much as Merkel after leaving office.
But it is above all the coiffeur and make-up item that causes scandal. The Kanzleramt, which is directly responsible for the costs of the former chancellors, in fact pays Merkel for the services of a Berlin professional, a well-known hairdresser and fashion designer, who not only does her hair and make-up when she is in Berlin, but also accompanies her on her appointments in Germany and abroad. It goes without saying that the travel and hotel expenses of the “make-up and hairstyling assistant” are also borne by the exchequer.
The bill for 2022 was 37,780 euros, while in the current year the expenditure has so far been 17,200 euros. On average, they make 3,000 euros a month for what Tagesspiegel defines as “the beautiful presence of the former chancellor”.
The League of German Taxpayers strongly criticizes the excessive costs for these purposes. “It is difficult to explain to tax payers that they also have to bear the costs for politicians’ make-up artists and hairdressers,” said President Reiner Holznagel, according to whom these items “should be reduced to the minimum necessary and, if in doubt, paid privately by the interested parties ».
Merkel is actually not the only one with public funds for hair and make-up. Even Chancellor Scholz is not joking, despite the fact that he has very little or no hair at all. According to Tagesspiegel, in 2022 “representatives of the stationery” spent almost 40,000 euros on hair and make-up, while this year they are already at 21,808 euros. A parliamentary inquiry conducted a few months ago revealed that in the first year of the Scholz government, total spending on photographers, hairdressers and make-up artists rose to 1.5 million euros, 80% more than in 2021, the last year of Merkel in power.
The Lutheran morality prevailing in the Germans is very severe in the face of these behaviors by those in public office. Last week, the Christian-social minister-president of Bavaria, Markus Söder, caused a scandal when in 2022 alone he spent 180,000 euros to pay the freelance photographers who followed him permanently, despite the Bavarian budget already allocating 36 thousand euros a year for an official photographer who works permanently for the Land.