Patrick Graichen has to go. A few days ago, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck was still holding on to his state secretary. Now the minister says: “It was one mistake too many”.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck justified the resignation of his State Secretary Patrick Graichen. Further internal checks would have brought new incidents to light that would have led to the termination of the cooperation, Habeck said on Wednesday in Berlin. The “one mistake too many”, as Habeck now called it, was an event from November 30, 2022. According to the Minister for Economic Affairs, Graichen signed a proposal for funding at that time, which also affected the BUND Berlin state association. His sister is on the board there, and she was state chairwoman until May 2022. Specifically, it was about 600,000 euros, but no money had flowed. With his signing, Graichen actually initiated a promotion for this association. This is a compliance violation. The projects “shouldn’t have been presented” to Graichen, and he “shouldn’t have signed them off,” said Habeck.
A new test result has been available for the new facts since Tuesday evening. This led to Graichen being released: “Patrick Graichen has made himself too vulnerable to be able to carry out his office.” He agreed on this “in a personal conversation” yesterday evening with his now former State Secretary. Habeck now wants to take care of a successor “quickly”.
Habeck: Patrick Graichen should be put into early retirement
The Federal Minister of Economics had previously stood in front of his minister. But this error is too serious “in the overall view”, according to Habeck, too many errors have happened: “I have to be sure that the compliance firewall has no cracks. These cracks have now closed.” The 51-year-old Graichen is now to be placed in early retirement
At the same time, the minister criticized the way his state secretary was treated as “intolerable”. Graichen was attacked “beyond legitimate criticism”, by right-wing voices and “Russian accounts”, and lies were also spread about his family.
While still in Reykjavik, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was asked about his perspective on the so-called best man affair at a press conference during the Council of Europe meeting. However, Scholz only commented briefly. He had been informed and assumes “that the Minister of Economic Affairs will continue his work with full force.”
Criticism of Graichen began because of the award of a top position at the federal German Energy Agency (Dena) to a close friend of Graichen. The position was initially awarded to the former Berlin Greens politician Michael Schäfer. Graichen, who was on the selection committee, did not make it clear that Schäfer was his best man.
On Wednesday morning it became known that Graichen would now vacate his post after weeks of criticism.
This message has been updated several times.
Source: Stern
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