Outgoing Minister
Altmaier: Should have been more courageous when it comes to climate protection
Peter Altmaier withdraws from politics. Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
With his retirement as Minister of Economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier is withdrawing completely from politics. Looking back, he finds: When it comes to the climate, you should have been faster and more courageous.
Almost 10 years as a minister, more than 25 years in the Bundestag – Peter Altmaier can look back on a long political career. The 63-year-old CDU politician is still the executive minister of economics.
With the likely transfer of office to the Green politician Robert Habeck on Wednesday, however, he is withdrawing into private life. He does not want to become a lobbyist, said Altmaier on Monday in Berlin. He does not want to disappear completely from the scene, but does not want to comment publicly until February.
The long-time companion of the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel has been Minister of Economic Affairs since March 2018. In parting, he emphasized above all the fight against the economic consequences of the pandemic as well as his initially heavily controversial industrial strategy, which envisages a stronger role for the state. Altmaier admitted omissions in climate policy: he would have wished that the necessary decisions in the black-red coalition had been made more quickly and more courageously.