BERLIN. The German Ministry of Health, led by Jens Spahn, purchased over half a million Ffp2 masks last year from Burda Gmbh, whose representative office is entrusted to Spahn’s husband, Daniel Funke. Spiegel reports this online, underlining that a document on the matter, which he has read, has been sent by the ministry to the Bundestag. In this way, the scandal on the affairs linked to the anti-covid dpi that has already overwhelmed some deputies of the German conservatives of the CDU-CSU Union risks widening.
The German weekly evokes a potential conflict of interest for Minister Spahn, also because the purchase of the masks was agreed directly between the Ministry of Health and the company, without a tender. According to documents sent by the Ministry of Health to the Bundestag, Burda GmbH sold 570,000 masks to the ministry headed by Spahn. The contract, explained a spokesman for the ministry, replying to Spiegel, was “concluded and elaborated after receiving the offer according to a standardized procedure at market prices”, considering the “urgency” of protective devices.
And it was the CEO of Burda, Paul-Bernhard Kallen, who contacted Spahn to offer his masks. The purchase is referred to as a ‘direct procurement’, a sort of simplified procedure that the ministry used in March and April to purchase masks from any supplier that met certain criteria. In the first phase of the pandemic where devices were in short supply. Regarding the possible role of Spahn’s husband in the purchase of this batch of masks, the company explained that “he was never informed or involved in the transaction”. And he hasn’t even been paid a commission. Burda also spoke on behalf of the person concerned, Daniel Funke (lobbyist and head of the representative office in Berlin), who did not personally answer Spiegel’s questions.