Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU), Environment Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, invited to Mallorca for her husband’s birthday days after the flood disaster.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf A good five weeks before the state elections, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU) wants to resign. The German press agency in Düsseldorf found out on Thursday. The politician said on Thursday evening that she had offered Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) her resignation – and he had accepted it.
Heinen-Esser came under increasing pressure because of a stay in Mallorca during the flood disaster in July 2021. She met other members of the government in Mallorca a few days after the disaster last July to celebrate her husband’s birthday.
Construction Minister Ina Scharrenbach (CDU), Europe Minister Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner (CDU) and the then State Secretary Serap Güler (CDU) took part in a joint “dinner” on July 23 in Mallorca, Heinen-Esser confirmed.
The minister had admitted mistakes in the past, but has so far refused to resign. She denied the allegation of fraud. She will continue to participate in the clarification and strive for transparency, it said.
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The Environment Minister has long been criticized for briefly interrupting her stay in Mallorca after the flood on July 15, but then continuing on July 16. She justified this in the state parliament’s investigative committee by saying that she had to bring back her underage daughter and her friends who had stayed on the island.
More: Survey for the NRW state election: CDU and SPD continue to be almost equal