Funding scandal: Bettina Stark-Watzinger fails to provide answers

Subsidy scandal
In cross-examination: The minister gives no answer to the crucial question

Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) had to explain herself to the Education Committee. She evaded a key point. She received support from a surprising quarter.

The minister came in black. At 11:59 a.m. Bettina Stark-Watzinger entered conference room 3.101 in the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus of the Bundestag. The Education Committee had invited her here and demanded information about the so-called subsidy scandal.

It is not apparent that the 56-year-old FDP politician is concerned with nothing less than her political survival these days. She confidently answers the MPs’ questions for three quarters of an hour – at least the ones she answers. However, she leaves one very important question unanswered, even after repeated requests.

Who is responsible for the fact that a list was drawn up in your ministry of university lecturers who had expressed their solidarity with pro-Palestinian students in an open letter on May 8th and who also receive funding from the ministry? And for what purpose was this list drawn up?

On May 8, the minister herself was quoted by the “Bild” newspaper as saying that the open letter had left her “stunned”. Professors and lecturers in particular must “stand on the basis of the Basic Law”.

Did the ministry want to cut funding for politically undesirable scientists?

Secretary of State had to go

This question cost the civil servant State Secretary Sabine Döring her job. Stark-Watzinger put her into temporary retirement after the NDR had researched that Döring had commissioned an audit of funding law. However, this process was stopped almost immediately; Döring later explained in an email to her staff that she had been misunderstood. She was only concerned with the question of whether the open letter’s demand that no police deployment on campus was constitutional.

Before the Stark-Watzinger assures the Education Committee that she had nothing to do with the process. “Such an examination contradicts the principles of academic freedom,” she stresses. She only found out from the media that such an order had even been given in her ministry. She then got information and decided that there was no longer a “basis of trust” for further cooperation with the State Secretary.

The minister claims to have known nothing about the list of names

But Stark-Watzinger also claims to have known nothing about the list of names. starWhen asked about the existence of this list a week ago, the ministry remained silent. It has since been confirmed. A specialist department had created it in order to be prepared for press inquiries, Stark-Watzinger said to the Education Committee: “This overview was not presented to me and was not passed on to third parties.”

But that is not enough for the education policy spokesman of the Union faction, Thomas Jarzombek (CDU). He asks three times who commissioned the list. And receives no answer. All she can say is that the list was not commissioned by the management level and not by her personally, says Stark-Watzinger. She does not want to say more because it is also “about protecting employees”.

The AfD applauds Stark-Watzinger

From internal documents provided to the star It is clear from the documents available that, in addition to the relevant department, the press office also asked on May 10, two days after the open letter was published, to check which of the signatories received donations from the ministry. This was done “as a matter of routine” in order to be able to respond to press inquiries.

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And the minister, who publicly opposed the lecturers so clearly, claims to have known nothing about this? Left Party MP Nicole Gohlke called this “unbelievable” in the Education Committee meeting. But Stark-Watzinger sticks to her story.

She is receiving support from the AfD, of all parties. The criticism of the open letter was exploited by “a certain interested lobby” in order to “live out their own hatred of Jews” under the guise of freedom of expression, believes AfD MP Götz Frömming: “It is right to consider what can be done about it.”

“An opinion has no right to approval”

But Stark-Watzinger does not want to be taken over by the right. One must differentiate between freedom of opinion and academic freedom. This is not about “quick applause from one corner”. She remains critical of the open letter, which represents an expression of opinion: “An opinion has no right to approval.” But her ministry awards funding based on “scientific excellence”, not on global political views.

The members of the Education Committee are not convinced by the minister’s statements – apart from those from Watzinger’s own parliamentary group.

“Many questions remained unanswered today,” complained CDU politician Jarzombek after the meeting. They will continue to monitor the process. For Stark-Watzinger, it became clear on Wednesday that the fight for survival is not over yet.