Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) and his criticized State Secretary Patrick Graichen will be questioned by members of the Bundestag about the ministry’s personnel policy this Wednesday.
It is expected that both will speak at a joint meeting of the Committees for Economics and Climate Protection and Energy from 12 noon. The final decisions on the process should not be made in the respective committees until Wednesday morning.
Graichen was involved in the selection of the new managing director of the federally owned German Energy Agency (Dena), Michael Schäfer, although he is his best man. Both Graichen and Habeck now speak of a mistake. The procedure for selecting personnel is to be rolled out again.
There is also criticism of personal ties in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Graichen’s sister, married to his colleague Michael Kellner, works like her brother at the Öko-Institut – a research institute that receives orders from the federal government. The ministry emphasizes that Kellner and Graichen were not involved in tenders for which the Öko-Institut could have applied.
Habeck had promised full transparency
In the afternoon (3:25 p.m.), the Bundestag then discussed the topic at the instigation of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in a topical hour. Union representatives, including parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz (CDU), speak of nepotism and also bring a committee of inquiry into play.
Merz said on Tuesday that such a committee would be an “appropriate means” if the open questions in the committee meeting were not answered adequately.
CDU Vice Andreas Jung told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”: “Robert Habeck and Patrick Graichen must now create comprehensive transparency in the committee and answer all questions that have arisen”. Graichen’s previous explanations were not sufficient.
The CDU member of the Bundestag Gitta Connemann spoke in the “Rheinische Post” of a “week of truth” for Habeck and Graichen. Habeck could only escape a committee of inquiry “through the greatest possible transparency”.
Habeck had promised full transparency in the committee on Tuesday. “What the parliamentarians then do with this transparency is certainly a political question,” the minister added. The minister is sticking to Graichen, where all the threads on the subject of energy transition come together in the ministry.
The chairman of the left in the economic committee, Pascal Meiser, told the “Augsburger Allgemeine” in the direction of Habeck: “He should seriously consider whether he is not doing the work on the energy transition a disservice if he sticks to his state secretary.”
The position of Dena managing director is to be re-advertised in the coming days. That said the chairman of the supervisory board, the parliamentary secretary of state for economic affairs Stefan Wenzel (Greens), on Tuesday evening in Berlin at an event to bid farewell to the current managing director Andreas Kuhlmann. “It will also be advertised publicly in a few days and then everyone can apply again.”
According to Wenzel, the search committee was set up more broadly, “in terms of the number of people, but also in terms of anchoring in the ministries”. He hopes that a decision will be made “very early” and that it will be known before the summer break who will manage Dena together with managing director Kristina Haverkamp. Schäfer should have taken office on June 15. (dpa)
