The party leaders of the Greens, Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour, have backed Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck in the debate about personnel ties around State Secretary Patrick Graichen.
Party leader Lang sharply rejected the allegations of nepotism made by Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder. Mistakes happened and they were clearly acknowledged, Lang said on Sunday evening in the ARD program “Report from Berlin”. The Greens are also happy to accept criticism.
“But if that comes loudest from the CSU and Markus Söder, among others, the one with the amigo affair, who made nepotism into a kind of working model with the mask affair, then you have to honestly say that there is an accusation of double standards also more projection.”
Söder also criticizes the personnel policy of the Ministry of Economics as a whole
Among other things, Lang referred to the mask affair in which members of the Bundestag and state parliament from the CDU and CSU were involved. During the corona pandemic, they received a lot of money for arranging protective masks.
At the CSU party conference on Saturday, CSU leader Markus Söder asked Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) to fire his State Secretary Patrick Graichen. Otherwise the Graichen affair would be a Habeck affair. Graichen has been under massive criticism for days because he was involved in the selection of the new managing director of the German Energy Agency, Michael Schäfer, even though he is his best man.
However, Söder also criticized the personnel policy of the Ministry of Economics 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 but green corruption,” he said.
Habeck himself had already admitted that the debate was 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 error could still be corrected,” he added, referring to the re-advertisement for the chief post of the energy agency Dena.
“It’s a mistake, it’s a mistake, it’s a mistake – period,” stressed Habeck
“It’s a mistake, I’d like to be a politician who admits mistakes,” said Habeck. He asks the same of his employees. But in other places “firewalls” were put in place, which also worked. Habeck rejected the accusation by his party friend Jürgen Trittin that it was a campaign against the energy transition, with Graichen as the central figure. “It’s a mistake, it’s a mistake, it’s a mistake – period,” stressed Habeck. “And the gas industry did not make this personal mistake.”
The Greens-led Economics Ministry is also being criticized because Energy State Secretary Graichen has family ties to the Öko-Institut. Graichen’s sister Verena works there, she is married to Economics Secretary Michael Kellner. Patrick Graichen’s brother also works at the Öko-Institut. The Ministry of Economics published details on the links with the institute on Friday.
Green boss Nouripour pointed out on ZDF that Verena Graichen, for example, had received orders from the Ministry of Economic Affairs at the time of Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier (CDU). Therefore, some allegations would now be constructed. “We are the Greens, we are measured by different standards,” he said. But that’s a good thing: you don’t want to be treated like the CSU with its amigo and mask affairs. He also spoke of systematic networks on the subject of Russia, alluding to the SPD. Ricarda Lang emphasized on ARD that it was good to own up to the mistakes made. Society is facing “incredibly large processes of change”. You need credibility for that.