Baerbock employee becomes a lobbyist at the energy company RWE

Germany Titus Rebhann

Close Baerbock employee becomes a lobbyist at RWE

Annalena Baerbock in October 2022 at the federal party conference of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Annalena Baerbock in October 2022 at the federal party conference of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen

Annalena Baerbock in October 2022 at the federal party conference of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen

Source: dpa/Kay Nietfeld

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According to information from WELT, the former office manager of Foreign Minister Baerbock is going to the energy company RWE as a group representative. The company has often been seen as a red rag by environmentalists.

Et is a bang for the Greens and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock: Titus Rebhann, who used to be the office manager in the MPs’ office and most recently worked in the minister’s office in the Foreign Office, will become Berlin’s chief lobbyist at the energy company RWE on March 1, 2023. This was confirmed by WELT from company circles.

Baerbock had brought Rebhann from her office in the Bundestag. He previously worked for years in the office of Green energy politician Oliver Krischer, who has been environment minister in North Rhine-Westphalia since June 2022. With Rebhann, the RWE group based in Essen in the Ruhr area can not only count on Rebhann’s contacts in the federal government, but also in the black-green state government in Düsseldorf. However, he should deliberately not do any lobbying with the Foreign Office.

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According to reports, Rebhann will take over the management of the group’s Berlin representative office. RWE advertised this position in the summer. According to information from WELT, Rebhann had applied for the position himself. According to reports, the group is now counting on his contribution to the “transformation” of the company. Rebhann was released from his previous position at the Federal Foreign Office in mid-October. The Federal Foreign Office assured that Rebhann had “no professional contacts” with RWE there and “was not involved in any projects directly related to RWE”.

“Support for opinion-forming processes”

According to the job advertisement for the group representative office, the central tasks there include “accompanying the political opinion-forming processes on key energy-related issues and positioning RWE as a competent partner in the field of renewable energies”.

The RWE Group is actually highly controversial among environmentalists because of its role in lignite mining in NRW. The group is also the operator of the Emsland nuclear power plant in Lingen. It is one of the three reactors that should actually be shut down at the end of the year, but according to the will of the traffic light coalition should now continue to run until mid-April. RWE quit after the recent federal election also increased investments in renewable energies.

RWE's Emsland nuclear power plant

RWE’s Emsland nuclear power plant

Source: dpa/Sina Schuldt

In the spring, it already caused debates that Annalena Baerbock’s husband, Daniel Holefleisch, joined the PR and lobbying agency MSL as a partner.

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Source: AFP, AFP/ AFP/ Saul Loeb

Correction: In a first version, we erroneously wrote that Rebhann was the office manager at the Federal Foreign Office. We have corrected this.

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