Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck is sticking with his State Secretary Patrick Graichen. In this context, Habeck called the re-advertising of the chief post of the German Energy Agency (Dena) the correction of an error. “The substance of the error could still be corrected, namely a new tender,” said the Green politician on Saturday in Deutschlandfunk’s “Interview of the Week”. CSU leader Markus Söder called for Graichen’s dismissal at a party conference.
Graichen has come under pressure because he was involved in the selection of Dena’s new managing director, Michael Schäfer, even though he is his best man. On Friday, the Dena supervisory board decided to re-advertise the chief post of the federal company.
In the political sphere, it is not often that mistakes are proactively acknowledged. “But that’s what I want, that’s what I ask of my people and also of myself,” Habeck said on Deutschlandfunk. If the error can be corrected, it must be done.
economic crisis averted
In the “Welt am Sonntag” Habeck praised Graichen’s energy. “Patrick is a robust politician and with his consistent manner he has taken care of averting an economic crisis and gas shortages, filling gas storage facilities, building LNG terminals, connecting coal-fired power plants and extending nuclear power plants,” he said.
“Habeck must dismiss Graichen,” demanded CSU party leader Söder on Saturday at a CSU party conference in Nuremberg. Otherwise the Graichen affair would be a Habeck affair. Söder criticized the personnel policy of the Ministry of Economic Affairs as a whole. “The whole green clan is somehow occupied there,” he said, “brother, sister, uncle, aunt.” And if you keep looking, you’re sure to find some Schwippschwager. “This is nothing more than green corruption,” criticized Söder. Should anyone from the Greens accuse the CSU of felting again, then he would call out to them: “Solve your own problems.”
interview of the week
