State Secretary for Economic Affairs Patrick Graichen, who is under pressure because of suspicion of nepotism, again admitted to mistakes at a hearing in the Bundestag. According to participants at a joint meeting of the parliamentary committees for economics and for climate protection and energy, Graichen said that he had made a mistake in the procedure for filling the post of managing director at the German Energy Agency (Dena), which he very much regrets and regrets.
The top official is accused of having proposed the former politician and climate protectionist Michael Schäfer as the new head of Dena as a member of a selection committee together with three colleagues, without pointing out that he had been his best man more than two decades ago.
He does not want to justify his behavior – but if he tries to explain it, then he was only interested in finding an excellent manager for the Energy Agency, said the State Secretary. Without a doubt, Schäfer was a good candidate. He, Graichen, also said that nine of the eleven candidates selected and suggested by a personnel agency were already known to him from his previous work – after all, he has been working in the climate and energy scene for over 20 years.
Habeck wants to hold on to Graichen
In this respect, it was a gradation as to which applicants he knew and how well. Today it is clear to him that he should have withdrawn from the selection committee immediately because of Schäfer’s candidacy. He didn’t. That was wrong, Graichen said, according to the participants.
In addition to the official, the committee had also summoned his employer, Economics Minister Robert Habeck. After the meeting, the Green politician said his employee had made a mistake. But he and Habeck decided “that Patrick Graichen doesn’t have to go because of this mistake”. The debate in the committees also gives him hope “that the differentiation will also make this decision more understandable”. Representatives of the CDU and Left Party, on the other hand, again called for the state secretary to be expelled.