Schäfer, who was supposed to take up the new post on June 15, is the best man of State Secretary for Economic Affairs Patrick Graichen, who in turn sat on the selection committee that Schäfer had proposed for the post.
(Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen)
Berlin According to information from the “Bild” newspaper, Michael Schäfer is resigning from the top position at the German Energy Agency (Dena) because of his personal ties with the Ministry of Economic Affairs. According to the report, it was agreed that Schäfer would voluntarily withdraw from his contract and thus also waive financial compensation. Dena did not want to comment on this when asked and only referred to ongoing discussions.
Schäfer, who was supposed to take up the new post on June 15, is the best man of State Secretary for Economic Affairs Patrick Graichen, who in turn sat on the selection committee that Schäfer had proposed for the post. After this became public, the supervisory board of the federal company decided last Friday to re-advertise the position.
The “Bild” quoted an unnamed Green politician with the words: “It is clear that the result of the new procedure cannot be called Michael Schäfer again – no matter how good he is.”
Bundestag survey: Habeck promises full transparency
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck promised to be open about his house’s personnel policy before being questioned by members of the Bundestag. “I would first of all emphasize that we ensure transparency all the time,” said the Green politician on Tuesday in Berlin in response to a corresponding question. “The effort, the approach and also, I would say, the reality is that we create transparency at every point. And that will certainly also take place in committee tomorrow. What the parliamentarians then do with this transparency is then certainly a political question.”
Both Graichen and Habeck are now talking about a mistake, the process for selecting personnel is to be rolled out again. There is also criticism of personal ties in the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
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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.
Representatives of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group had insisted that the Committee on Economic Affairs and the Committee on Climate Protection and Energy question Habeck and Graichen separately. A joint hearing between the two committees was also discussed on Tuesday afternoon.
Ministry of Economic Affairs publishes figures on grants and orders
In order to refute the accusation of nepotism, the Ministry of Economic Affairs published lists of orders and donations to BUND, Öko-Institut and Agora Energiewende on Tuesday. These lists at least show that there were various orders and payments to these three organizations before the traffic light government took office at the end of 2021.
For example, the think tank Agora Energiewende under the then CDU Economics Minister Peter Altmaier was granted a total of around 4.6 million euros for three projects. In October 2020, the BUND-Jugend received more than 800,000 euros for the “Local Conference of Youth” climate conference, and the Öko-Institut has even been awarded almost 6.5 million euros for the analysis and evaluation of climate measures and support programs since 2019. However, the completeness of these lists cannot be verified.
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