Berlin/Mainz Federal Family Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens) apologized in a statement to the press on Sunday evening for her vacation shortly after the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley. Spiegel gave personal reasons as the reason for the vacation decision: Her husband suffered a stroke and the pandemic put a heavy burden on her family with four children.
“It was a mistake that we went on vacation for so long and that we went on vacation. I apologize for this mistake,” said Spiegel. The minister is visibly emotional during her statement and always seems to be struggling for words.
But she was also in contact with her ministry while on vacation. In her previous position, Spiegel was also responsible for disaster warnings. She had to answer to a committee of inquiry in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament. In the summer of 2021, the Green politician left for a four-week family vacation in France as Rhineland-Palatinate Environment Minister around ten days after the flood disaster on the Ahr. The deputy government spokesman, Sebastian Kusche, confirmed a corresponding report by “Bild am Sonntag” on Sunday at the German Press Agency in Mainz.
Heinen-Esser resigned from her position on Thursday after it became known that she had celebrated a birthday with other members of the government in Mallorca a few days after the flood disaster in July 2021.
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The Union had called for Spiegel to be dismissed as Minister. “It proves again: For Ms. Spiegel, holidays and her own image were more important than the fate of the people on the Ahr. The Chancellor must dismiss her,” said CDU leader Friedrich Merz of the “Bild-Zeitung”.
CSU General Secretary Stephan Mayer had also pushed for consequences. He told the “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper: “Spiegel should take Heinen-Esser as an example and make her office available.”
More than 180 people lost their lives
In the flood disaster in mid-July 2021, more than 180 people died in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, including 134 in the Ahr Valley. Around 750 people were injured and large parts of the infrastructure and thousands of houses were destroyed. Many people still live in emergency or alternative quarters.
Deputy government spokesman Kusche reported that Spiegel once interrupted her vacation to get an idea of the situation on site. She was also always available and was present at the cabinet meetings via video. The 41-year-old, who is dependent on the summer holidays because of her four children, only drove after a crisis team had been set up in the Ministry for drinking water and sewage supply and waste disposal.
Spiegel had already come under criticism because she had worried about her political image in a short message exchange with her employees immediately after the night of the flood. The Greens politician had said in the investigative committee of the state parliament in Mainz that the help for those affected in the Ahr Valley was of the utmost importance to her.
“It is absolutely wrong and I firmly reject the fact that at some point I had a different priority.” In the multi-hour interrogation on March 11, unlike Heinen-Esser in the committee in North Rhine-Westphalia, Spiegel “fully answered every question,” said Kusche .
The Rhineland-Palatinate CDU chairman Christian Baldauf told the Handelsblatt on Thursday: “Ms. Heinen-Esser’s resignation must be a role model for Anne Spiegel. Her resignation is long overdue.”
“Fleeing Responsibility”
The parliamentary director and chairman of the Free Voters in the state parliament’s investigative committee on the flood disaster, Stephan Wefelscheid, accused Spiegel of “fleeing responsibility”. “When will she finally show strength of character, take the consequences and resign?”
Spiegel had taken over the management of the environment ministry in Rhineland-Palatinate in January 2021 after the resignation of her party friend Ulrike Höfken in addition to the family, integration and consumer protection ministries. After winning the state elections in March, the top candidate of the Greens took over the newly tailored Ministry of Climate Protection in Mainz – around two months before the flood disaster.
Before she moved to Berlin, the 41-year-old was also Deputy Prime Minister in Malu Dreyer’s (SPD) second traffic light government.
More on this: “Our employees work beyond the extent of exhaustion”: This is how the economy struggles with the consequences of the flood