After allegations of nepotism, the Greens politician Michael Schäfer will withdraw from his contract as designated managing director of the German Energy Agency (Dena), according to a media report. With this, the first personnel consequences are drawn in the Felt affair in Robert Habeck’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. First had the Picture reported on Schäfer’s withdrawal before the job started. He was supposed to take office on June 15th.
Schäfer was only appointed as the new Dena boss in April. Among others, Habeck State Secretary Patrick Graichen was involved in his selection. The trigger for the severe criticism: Michael Schäfer was Graichen’s best man years ago.
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Graichen will be questioned by MPs on the ministry’s personnel policy this Wednesday. Both will probably speak at a joint meeting of the committees for business and climate protection and energy from 12 p.m., even if the final decisions on the procedure are not to be made in the respective committees until Wednesday morning. CDU MP Tilman Kuban told the German Press Agency: “The Ministry of Economics must be the guardian of the social market economy and must not give the impression of a green self-service shop.”
Minister of Economics Habeck has always emphasized that he is committed to fighting any form of corruption and to promoting transparency, the economist continued. “We will continue to support him and help him to clarify what is happening in his ministry. I hope that Patrick Graichen will be able to clear up the allegations that are being made.”
After Graichen informed Habeck that Schäfer was his best man, both Habeck and Graichen speak of a mistake that Graichen nevertheless served as a member of the selection committee that Schäfer had proposed for the post.
The Federal Minister of Economics also admitted that the debate about personnel ties surrounding his State Secretary Patrick Graichen is a burden for him and the ministry. “Patrick Graichen is already paying a high public price for the mistake – all of us,” said the Green politician on Deutschlandfunk on Sunday. “But the substance of the mistake could still be corrected,” he added, referring to the re-advertisement for the chief post of the energy agency Dena.
Criticism of other family entanglements Graichens
FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki last week suggested that Habeck should dismiss Graichen. “The fact that Patrick Graichen made his best man head of Dena without the minister’s knowledge would have inevitably resulted in his dismissal in other personal and family circumstances,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “The fact that Habeck doesn’t have the courage to draw conclusions makes him the target of political attacks.”
There is also criticism of personal ties in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Patrick Graichen’s sister Verena, married to his colleague Michael Kellner, works like his brother Jakob at the Öko-Institut – a research institute that receives orders from the federal government. The Ministry of Economics published details on the links with the institute on Friday.
However, the ministry emphasizes that Kellner and Graichen were not involved in tenders for which the Öko-Institut could have applied. In order to refute the accusation of nepotism, the Ministry of Economic Affairs published lists of orders and donations to the environmental protection organization BUND, the think tank Agora Energiewende and the Öko-Institut on Tuesday. This at least shows that there were various orders and payments to these three organizations before the traffic light government took office at the end of 2021.
For example, Agora Energiewende was granted a total of around 4.6 million euros for three projects under the then CDU Economics Minister Peter Altmaier. In October 2020, the BUND-Jugend received more than 800,000 euros for the “Local Conference of Youth” climate conference, and the Öko-Institut has even been awarded almost 6.5 million euros for the analysis and evaluation of climate measures and support programs since 2019. However, the completeness of these lists cannot be verified.
The Öko-Institut itself also made a statement on Tuesday and emphasized that it had been receiving orders and grants from various federal governments for years – “from ministers of the CDU and CSU, the SPD, the FDP and the Greens”.