You knew from the start that you couldn’t tell everything. But this is a problem for non-fiction books.
Less for this book than for our society. It is a problem that entire regions are so isolated that one cannot speak openly about the problems within them. My goal is not to write an investigative book – I am not an investigative journalist. My goal is to change something about it. I’ve explained that the lack of transparency bothers me. And this is something that politicians can and must change.
One of the chapters of your book discusses financial industry lobbying. What is your experience as a prosecutor?
On the one hand, you might ask yourself why the authorities are in such a bad position here. We know, for example, that auditors make more money than taxpayers pay, but their numbers have been declining. During the criminal process, I also specifically experienced how strong the resistance from the financial industry was.
White-collar criminals increasingly employ PR consultants and try to influence public opinion and court decisions through media campaigns. For example, the prosecutor’s office is suspected of acting disproportionately and the perpetrator is a victim of politically motivated persecution.
Are politicians able to overcome pressure from the financial industry?
I don’t think it’s easy for politicians. Not everyone is an expert in financial markets, and in a technically complex field, you are more susceptible to influence or even manipulation. The financial industry is fundamentally operating on a false narrative. For example, it was claimed that Cum-Ex was just an exaggerated problem caused by a small group of black sheep.
Like anyone else, politicians can be manipulated.
Anne Brorhilker, Finanzwende e. v.
Apart from that, the laws and regulations are also unclear. As common sense as it sounds, at first we all think tax laws are complicated. If you don’t know your surroundings and don’t know that the cum-ex industry exists, such manipulation will get you caught. That’s why you have to explain what it actually looks like.
Once again: Do politicians allow themselves to be manipulated and make decisions more in the interests of the financial industry than in the interests of citizens?
Yes of course. Like anyone else, politicians can be manipulated. In the past there was no loud voice of civil society because Finanzwende e. V. has only been around since 2018. But what is always heard is the loud voice of the financial lobby. So this can happen to any of us: You have to make a decision in an area you don’t know well, and then a bunch of helpful “experts” come to you and bombard you with false narratives. We now believe in Finanzwende e. V. is against it, but we are still much smaller than the big financial lobbies that spend almost 40 million euros a year on it.
