As a German this is not "well known" to me, do you have a source?

Until now I thought one Accenture manager was the godfather of a child of a deparment manager in the ministry of defence and Accenture got an consulting gig? I didn't know until now she was giving jobs to her relatives.

But more importantly, the people working for her on the government side were often super close to the consultants they hired. As the minister, she takes responsibility for what is going on in her ministry - and that was full of friends giving contracts to friends.

But anyway, I think the point is still a fair one. Major portions of her thesis were plagiarized. Even if it was an accident (I don't see how that would be possible), the least thesis should be revoked or all students should be allowed to plagiarize their theses as well.

Being part of a rich and powerful family does not make one bad, using that power to cheat and exploit sure does.

It was a classic non-scandal, with zero convictions or indictments in the end, in stark contrast to the attention it got in the media. Not surprising considering how German journalists tend to dislike conservatives in general and how my countrymen on average lack basic financial education.

Disclaimer: I never voted conservative (CDU) and never will, but as much as I don't like von der Leyen "she's well known for nepotism" is just unfair and untrue.

Are you saying that Blue Chip to Mid Cap Stock Index companies regularly spend > 1B on consulting?

Either way using relativism to minimise a crime is sophistry

"I murdered a few people - the US government kills thousands of people a year in <current war>" - you're still guilty of murder, even if someone is better at the crime than you are.

Again: Although there were a parliamentary investigations, there was no crime. No conviction, no indictment, no charges pressed.

300M € was what was spent on all external consultancies combined. The yearly Bundeswehr budget is 42 bln € [1]. 300M is < 1%.

In 2018, the big four (KPMG, PwC, EY and Deloitte) extracted 650M € from the 30 DAX companies alone. And that is just the auditor segment. This doesn't include the strategic consultancies, IT consultancies or Headhunters.

And it also doesn't include the consultancy subsidiaries of said DAX companies. Speaking of subsidiary consultancies: 2/3 of said 300M € "embazzled Bundeswehr money" were spent on it's own consultancy BDI.

This whole "Affair" just resides on general public resentment of the word "consultant" and the public's inability and unwillingness to calculate or research these numbers themself. Especially as soon as there is a "smoking gun" to find by focusing all efforts on looking the other way, which allows us to create a hoax like this.

[1] German: "Milliarde"

Compared to 650M € and 30 DAX companies, 300M € spent by one single "company" do not sound like peanuts, especially since AFAIK the latter money was only meant for IT services & infrastructure(?)

> 2/3 of said 300M € "embazzled Bundeswehr money" were spent on it's own consultancy BDI.

I suppose you meant BWI, as in https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/BWI_GmbH ?

I also like to point out that of those political groups that were screaming foul the loudest with regards to the "consultant affair", these were the groups with the least interest in or sympathy to the German military.

Which is adding insult to injury because the whole reason the Bundeswehr has to hike its expenditures on consultants at all is because policies of the last decades, specifically of those groups, left the Bundeswehr one of the least attractive employers in the whole country, especially for seeked after talent.

I'm sorry, the cost/performance ratio makes complete sense.

The Bundeswehr is culturally frowned upon in large parts of our society since at least the 1970s so it is no wonder that policies enacted breathe that spirit.

Thus we are a country whose military openly admits it can't defend the country. For a couple of years now. There is close to zero outcry about that, certainly less outcry than the "Berateraffaire" got.

So clearly she hasn't done a good job

Not saying she did in general, but blaming an army depleted and frowned upon for decades on her six years as Secretary of Defense (SoD) is deceitful (not saying that you do).

On the contrary: Turning this shipwreck around affords even more expenditures. So expect the cost/performance ratio to become even worse.

she's been rewarded with the presidency of the EU, which is corruption in itself.

Since von der Leyen clearly hasn't proved herself to be included in the realms of sinister masterminds (she got ousted from her SoD job for a non-scandal) the curruption-part lies within the EU itself, for nullifing an election result, and how they've chosen her.

If she hired her son directly, or as part of the team, if he was lobbying her, then it's a problem.

But if her son worked at IBM and she, as Defence Minister hired IBM for some defence contract, then it's irrelevant.

Edit: I should be clear, among the elite, specifically if there are central groups which exist especially within EU nations, and also 'bubbles' in the US i.e. Valley, Hollywood, NY Finance etc. it's very common for 'big contracts' to go to so-and-so, and as a 'favour' the so-and-so takes on 'sufficiently credentialed son/daughter'. For example, if you're the top Defence bureaucrat and you hire 'Bain & Co.' to do a procurement analysis ... well ... you're son with a newly minted MBA might find it much easier to get hired there. While this kind of 'soft nepotism' is arguably problematic, it's also not so bad. It's when the 'wife, niece and grandson of the French President' have 'fully paid positions in the bureaucracy' for which they literally do nothing, or when the PM hires his college buddy's law firm for a $100M boondoggle that it gets worse.

This is not corruption, it's just favours.

Nobody is awarding a major contract to get their kid an associate job at McKinsey.

The contract is awarded to McKinsey, if the person holding the purse has someone looking to get into such a role, then it's a nice thing that McKinsey can do in return.

My mother was a director of customer service and used to hire all of my friends in high school ... because they were my friends. It's normal.

It's technically not very above bar, but it's not necessarily corrupt. Most people get jobs through their networks, this is 'kind of' that.

Relevant article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-growing-saudi-business-mckin...

The Saudi government is not giving McKinsey huge contracts because so and so's kid got hired there - point blank.

Also remember these kids are already stinking rich they don't even need to work.

And it's also a part of the world where business is done on the basis of relationships.

When a firm is giving Ferraris as 'kickbacks' then it's corruption but not this.

Hiring less than capable individuals while excluding more capable individuals, for the sake of obtaining contracts, in a region where ministers are changed on a regular basis (hence no guarantees of the connections staying forever) is exactly what I'd call a kickback.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen#Berater-A...

Pushing for something that may be objectively terrible and is agreed by everybody is objectively terrible, may be terrible, but it is still not corrupt.

Words have meanings, and for that to be corrupt it would also require that the person pushing for it was doing so not because they believed it was the right thing to do, but because they were doing it for nefarious reasons such as having been bribed, or only because it would personally enrich themselves.

https://translate.google.com/translate?um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&c...