The Federal Ministry of Economics is reviewing the replacement of the chief post at the German Energy Agency (Dena) because of possible bias. The selection process for the post will be “re-launched if necessary,” the ministry said.
The background is the private connection of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs involved in the personnel decision Patrick Graichen with the designated CEO of Dena, Michael Schaefer. He was Graichen’s best man.
In the actual selection process, there were “legally no mistakes,” the ministry said. “But due to an error in an upstream pre-selection process the appearance of a possible bias could have arisen.“
According to the ministry, Graichen was a member of a selection committee for potential applicants prior to the personnel decision by the Dena supervisory board. This had also held talks with possible candidates. According to the information, the commission then made a pre-selection and “submitted a personnel proposal to the Dena Supervisory Board based on the best qualifications”.
Criticism from the CSU
The chairman of the CSU state group in the Bundestag, Alexander Dobrindt, called for Graichen’s dismissal on Friday.
“Green clan structures make a federal ministry their prey“, Dobrindt told the “Bild” newspaper. “It’s time for the Chancellor to intervene.”
Habeck has initiated an internal review
Schäfer should have taken up his new post on June 15. Graichen informed Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) at the beginning of the week that Schäfer was his best man. The minister then initiated an internal audit.
Criticism from the CDU
The CDU economic politician Julia Klöckner asked Habeck to clarify the background to the personnel decisions in his house. He had to “now finally make completely transparent“, Klöckner told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
She criticized the fact that posts had been awarded “without advertisements to party friends”. Personal connections would undermine “trust in the independence of a ministry and the decisions made”.
Habeck should make a clean sweep
The parliamentary manager of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei (CDU), has asked Economics Minister Habeck to “clean the slate” in the discussion about State Secretary Graichen. Family ties and ideological one-sidedness also harmed practical policy in the Ministry of Economy. Frei said on the TV channel “Welt”: “The Federal Minister of Economics is responsible for cleaning the slate here, also removing the bad appearance of his house – and making sure that the Federal Ministry of Economics can concentrate on the matter “.
It is amazing “how societies in the pre-political area are closely intertwined, often even in terms of family ties,” said Frei, referring to Habeck’s State Secretary Graichen’s family connections to the Öko-Institut and the BUND and Dena.
Criticism from anti-corruption organization
The anti-corruption organization Transparency International Germany has also criticized the approach of the Federal Ministry of Economics in selecting the managing director of Dena. “The BMWK should have handled the selection process for the chair differently from the start“, the managing director of Transparency International Germany, Anna-Maija Mertens, told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
“If a candidate is the secretary of state’s best man, then it’s part of the basics that the secretary of state discloses this and is not involved in the selection.”
“Even if the final decision seems to have been made by Dena’s supervisory board and there are no legal problems, you should avoid such an obvious conflict of interest,” said Mertens. (with AFP)
