Wissing miscalculated with his replacement of the Autobahn GmbH.
(Photo: IMAGO/Achille Abboud)
Berlin The supervisory board of the federal Autobahn GmbH rejects the plan of Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing to replace the acting managing director Stefan Krenz with the FDP politician and former Lower Saxony state chairman, Stefan Birkner.
According to information from the Handelsblatt from company and government circles, the employee side has pushed through an extraordinary meeting of the supervisory board. This will take place this Thursday in Berlin. The reason for the crisis meeting is the way in which Wissing prepared and communicated the change in personnel.
At the beginning of April, the minister informed the supervisory board via his parliamentary state secretary, the chairman of the supervisory board Oliver Luksic (FDP), that Krenz would leave the company – at his own request, as it was said.
The surprised councilors were also confronted with the fact that successors had already been found: in addition to party friend Birkner, who now works for the auditing company EY after the FDP left the Lower Saxony state parliament, the technical director of the federal-state project company Deges, Dirk Brandenburger, take on the same task on the autobahn. The employees learned about all of this from a report by the German Press Agency, which the ministry had initiated.
According to circles of the supervisory board, neither the appointment nor the presentation of the new managing directors favored by Wissing are on the agenda. Rather, the further procedure should be discussed.
Verdi: Management cannot simply be filled via a press release
The Ministry had become aware that it could no longer enforce both candidates. It was said that two thirds of the supervisory boards, including employees and representatives of the SPD and Greens, were against the plan – but a majority of two thirds was necessary.
The Verdi union has already informed the workforce that a managing director cannot leave a company without the approval of the supervisory board. Also, the filling of a management board “cannot simply happen via a press release from the minister”, according to a statement. The Verdi representatives make it clear: “The minister is not responsible and has no authority of his own to fill the management board.”
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This threatens Wissing, of all things, with the company, which is already afflicted with a number of problems in the start-up phase, at a deadlock. Launched in 2021, the Autobahn is still struggling to centralize the administration of federal trunk roads, which was previously organized by 16 federal states.
A functioning society is important for Wissing as well as for the construction industry, as it is supposed to renovate 4,000 bridges and expand the motorways by 1,000 kilometers in the next ten years. The federal government wants to invest more than eight billion euros a year in this.
As it was said from circles of the supervisory board, “an orderly appointment procedure should now be initiated”. “Transparent recruitment” is necessary. The presidency should be responsible and not the federal minister.
The dismissal of managing director Krenz is unclear
In addition, there is another piquant question to be clarified: the resignation of the current managing director Krenz. His contract was only extended for a further three years last year.
The Federal Ministry has given him the prospect of a termination agreement, including severance pay, according to circles on the supervisory board. This is “completely illusory”, as well as paying out the contract under certain circumstances. Krenz should – if he really wanted to leave – give his notice properly, it was said.
The next regular meeting is scheduled for June.
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