Defence minister slammed over private trip with son in army helicopter

euronews.com:

Germany's defence minister is under fire after a report emerged that she took a military helicopter to a private gathering.

Christine Lambrecht and her 21-year-old son Alexander Lambrecht flew to the island of Sylt in Schleswig-Holstein in mid-April for a private trip, Business Insider reported on Tuesday.

In a photo that was reportedly posted to her son's Instagram, he was pictured in the helicopter.

Germany's defence ministry said that Lambrecht paid the bill for her son's flight, which was estimated by Business Insider to cost more than €5,000 per hour.

Germany daily Bild reported that cabinet members are allowed to bring family members on government planes if they pay for it. Euronews has contacted the German defence ministry for comment.

The Social Democratic minister drew heavy criticism over the helicopter flight, especially from opposition politicians.

"Using the Bundeswehr for private and partisan purposes is inelegant," the first secretary of the CDU-CSU group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, said.

"The defence minister should be more tactful and not confuse the Luftwaffe (air force) with Lufthansa, Germany's main airline," he told the daily Bild.

Reinhard Brandl, who is in charge of defence issues in the conservative Bavarian CSU party, said that the timing of the trip was already "borderline" due to the war in Ukraine.

Brandl added that the fact her son was "boasting on Instagram that he was able to fly in the government helicopter to Sylt is the last straw".

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, chairwoman of the Bundestag's defence committee and a member of the liberal FDP, one of the parties in the current majority coalition, described the procedure as "rather unusual" and called for "clarification".

The affair comes at a