Federal government: Graichen case: Habeck is sticking to his state secretary

Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) is sticking to Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Patrick Graichen despite criticism of his personnel policy.

“Minister Habeck made a clear statement on this last week, and that applies,” said a spokeswoman for the ministry in Berlin when asked whether Graichen could be sure that he would keep his post. Deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner said: “On the subject one can only say that the Federal Ministry of Economics has looked at the case and has now drawn the appropriate conclusions from it, and from the Federal Chancellor’s point of view that is okay.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) relies on Minister Habeck’s crisis management. “He said that decisions that went wrong and can be criticized must be corrected. That happened,” said the SPD politician during his trip to Africa a press conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Two high-ranking employees of Habeck have family ties to the Öko-Institut, an ecologically oriented research institution. State Secretary Graichen’s sister, Verena Graichen, works for the nature conservation organization BUND and, like another brother, for the Öko-Institut. Verena Graichen, in turn, is married to the parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, Michael Kellner (Greens).

The ministry had already announced in April that Graichen would not be involved in procurement procedures to which the BUND, the Öko-Institut or the think tank Agora Energiewende, which Graichen headed until he moved to the ministry, could apply. The spokeswoman said on Friday that the ministry had published lists on Thursday evening that concerned orders for the Öko-Institut, as well as grants, such as for energy research projects. According to them, most of the projects already existed before the formation of the traffic light government. Corresponding lists for Agora and the BUND will also be published soon.