Merkel cancels Italy trip as scandal engulfs Wulff

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called off a trip to Italy as signs increase that president Christian Wulff will resign amid a scandal over favours he allegedly received before becoming head of state.

Ms Merkel’s office said she will make a statement at 11.30am (10.30am Irish time) today in Berlin – 30 minutes after Mr Wulff himself has called a news conference.

An official said Ms Merkel had called Italian premier Mario Monti and cancelled her planned trip to Rome.

Yesterday, prosecutors asked for parliament to lift Mr Wulff’s immunity – an unprecedented move against a German president.

They said there is “initial suspicion” that Mr Wulff improperly accepted benefits from a German film producer friend.

Mr Wulff was Ms Merkel’s candidate for the largely ceremonial presidency in 2010, and a resignation would be embarrassing and politically awkward for her - providing a major domestic distraction as she grapples with the eurozone debt crisis.

Mr Wulff has been embroiled in the slow-burning affair since mid-December, when it emerged that he had received a large private loan from a wealthy friend’s wife in his previous job as governor of Lower Saxony state.

That was followed in January by intense criticism over a furious call he made to the editor of Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper before it reported on the loan. Neither of those things, however, resulted in an investigation of Mr Wulff.

However, prosecutors in Hanover, Lower Saxony’s capital, said there is now an “initial suspicion” that Mr Wulff improperly accepted or granted benefits in his relationship with David Groenewold, a German film producer, and they requested that Mr Wulff’s immunity from prosecution be lifted so they can pursue an investigation. Those benefits allegedly included paying for a luxury hotel stay in 2007.

The prosecutors said Mr Groenewold is also under suspicion.

Thomas Oppermann, a senior politician with the opposition Social Democrats, said Mr Wulff’s position was “no longer sustainable”.

“We don’t need a saint in the Bellevue palace, but we do need someone who sticks to the law,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

Separately, Mr Wulff’s long-time spokesman Olaf Glaeseker – whom the president fired in December without explanation – is under investigation on corruption allegations in connection with the organisation of business conferences.

If Mr Wulff resigns, the speaker of the upper house of parliament – a rotating post currently held by Bavarian governor Horst Seehofer – would take over the presidential duties, which consist largely of signing legislation into law.

A special parliamentary assembly made up of lower-house politicians and representatives of Germany’s 16 states would have to elect a successor within 30 days.