Green politician criticizes the allegations against his State Secretary Patrick Graichen. One wants to stop the climate protection plans of the traffic light government. With this goal insinuations, insults, sometimes lies were spread “with a harshness and almost maliciousness,” said the Green politician on Wednesday evening in the ARD “Tagesthemen”. “And I’m not willing to sacrifice people to give in to this campaign.” Graichen was involved in the selection of Michael Schäfer as the new managing director of the federal German Energy Agency (Dena), although he was his best man. “We deal openly with the problem,” said Habeck. Graichen and he had admitted mistakes. The procedure for personnel selection is now to be rolled out again.
Habeck accuses his political opponents of linking the personnel with the criticism of the planned new building energy law. In essence, the law stipulates that from 2024 every newly installed heating system should be operated with 65 percent renewable energy. The most important technology for this is the heat pump. “The opposition has decided to fight for oil and gas heating and is also using this personality to wage this fight,” Habeck said on the show. “I’d like to separate things – we’ll see if I can get away with it, if that will be successful,”
Clarification of the Graichen Affair
Together with Graichen, Habeck answered questions from the members of the committees for business, climate protection and energy on Wednesday. Graichen asserted that he had neither given Schäfer nor other candidates any information or provided any advantages. But it was a mistake that he did not withdraw from the process because of Schäfer’s candidacy.
After the meeting, opposition representatives appeared unimpressed and demanded further clarification or Graichen’s dismissal. There was also criticism, for example, 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.
