There is said to be a striking number of family relationships in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. One post is now under scrutiny.
New fuss about the Ministry of Economics: It is said that employees with family ties are said to have been hired there. The allocation of a post should now be checked. It is about the German Energy Agency (Dena). The chairmanship of the management had gone to the best man of State Secretary Patrick Graichen. The Ministry of Economic Affairs now intends to see how the process went – and possibly to fill the position again.
Graichen informed Habeck at the beginning of the week that the new Dena boss Michael Schäfer was his best man, the ministry said. “Therefore, the appearance of a possible bias cannot be completely ruled out,” said the ministry. The minister then asked for an internal review at the beginning of the week. State Secretary for Economic Affairs Stefan Wenzel, as Chairman of the Dena Supervisory Board, had apparently asked the Supervisory Board on Thursday to review the procedure.
“There were no purely legal errors in the procedure; the resolutions of Dena’s supervisory board are effective. But due to an error in an upstream pre-selection process, the appearance of a possible bias could have arisen,” it said. This was the result of the internal audit initiated at Habeck’s request.
“Green Clan Structures”
Family ties between important employees of Habeck had caused irritation among the opposition. CSU General Secretary Martin Huber accused the Greens of turning the ministry into a “family ministry”. “In order to make a career at Habeck, you obviously have to be part of the family. Robert Habeck has to clear up the nepotism in the BMWK around the Graichen clan, Patrick Graichen can no longer be held as State Secretary.”
The CDU MP Tilman Kuban had spoken of “mafia tendencies” during a debate in the Bundestag on Wednesday, Stephan Brandner from the AfD, at whose instigation the Bundestag in Berlin discussed the topic in a current hour, spoke of “green clan structures”. Representatives of the traffic light groups emphasized that no rules had been violated. When asked, the Ministry of Economic Affairs stated that precautions had been taken to prevent conflicts of interest.
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Two high-ranking employees of Habeck have family ties to the Öko-Institut, an ecologically oriented research institution. State Secretary Graichen’s sister, Verena Graichen, works for the nature conservation organization BUND. Like another brother, she is also with the Öko-Institut, as the SPD MP Markus Hümpfer explained. Verena Graichen is also married to the parliamentary Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Michael Kellner (Greens).
Habeck received the prize from his brother
Selection process for new appointments takes place in several stages
According to its own description, the federal German Energy Agency sees itself as a “pioneer” of the energy transition. According to the Ministry of Economics, the decision on the review and possible resumption of the procedure for the dena chief post lies with the supervisory board.
At the beginning of April, dena announced that the shareholders and the Supervisory Board had appointed Schäfer as the new CEO of dena with effect from June 15, 2023. The administrative scientist will manage dena’s business together with Kristina Haverkamp, whose contract has been extended. Schäfer was previously a member of the management of the German Nature Conservation Union and represented the Greens in the Berlin House of Representatives.
