It is a real about-face: Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has dismissed a department head in his ministry with immediate effect. State Secretary Stefan Schnorr announced this on Thursday. The reason for this is that the “relationship of trust between the minister and this department head” no longer exists. Another employee, the head of the G25 department, which deals with hydrogen and fuel cells, was also transferred; he will now head a department in the railway department.
The background is the awarding of a controversial funding worth millions to the German Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (DWV) in 2021, in which the head of the department is said to have interfered. The ministerial official had received the funding application from his friend, the DWV boss, with whom he was repeatedly on vacationnot only supported it internally, but also intervened during the ongoing process, for example by inquiring about the status of the application’s processing.
“Inconsistencies and Contradictions”
An internal audit in the Federal Ministry of Transport in December 2023 initially came to the conclusion that there had been no undue influence by the head of the department in this matter. However, as is now known: based on incomplete information. Accordingly, the internal audit department at that time had access to emails between the head of the department and the entrepreneur who was a friend of his. However, the G25 department withheld some of the emails from the responsible staff unit.
An initial review of the documents, totaling 14 gigabytes, has now shown that there are “inconsistencies and contradictions”. Nothing can be said about the specific content yet. However, it is already clear that the department head had “more contact with applicants” than was initially known. There are “indications that influence was exerted.”
In addition, the internal audit department already has indications that “there have been deviations from the usual procedure when processing an application,” said Schnorr. Usually, a so-called “project sponsor” decides independently of the Federal Ministry of Transport which projects are subsidized with millions and which are not. The question that is now at the center of the investigation: Were hydrogen subsidies made possible that should not have been made possible?
There is currently no answer to this. “We can no longer rule out the possibility that there was influence,” said Schnorr. “I feel deceived.” What is much more important, however, is that the independent internal auditors also feel deceived – “and of course Mr. Wissing does too, it’s clear.”
Wissing “doesn’t have his house under control,” says a Union politician
According to a spokeswoman for the organization Lobbycontrol, the dismissal of the department head is “appropriate” and “consequential”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/.”The ministry is finally drawing conclusions from the allegations of favoritism,” it says. However, the ministry must now explain why the internal audit department did not uncover key information.
The deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group responsible for transport, Ulrich Lange (CSU), goes one step further. “Mr. Wissing doesn’t have his ministry under control,” he says. “There is chaos in the house of the Federal Transport Minister.”
According to State Secretary Schnorr, the DWV boss’s funding application is now being legally reviewed. And that’s not all: four other individual grants totaling 25.9 million euros are also being examined. It cannot be ruled out that money might even have to be paid back in the end. During the investigations, particular attention should also be paid to funding of 290 million euros to the Innovation and Technology Center for Hydrogen (ITZ), also from 2021. According to State Secretary Schnorr, the specialist department has “significant doubts” in this case. about funding the project, but the then Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) decided to do so “over the heads of his own employees” – and “politically outvoted” them.