In the debate about the controversial State Secretary Patrick Graichen, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) accused the opposition of unfairly linking the personnel with their energy policy goals. In the ARD “Tagesthemen” on Wednesday evening, Habeck said that he had been experiencing “for several weeks now that insinuations, insults and, in some cases, lies are being spread with harshness and almost maliciousness in order to achieve a goal of preventing the decarbonization of climate protection in the heat sector. But he himself is ‘not willing to sacrifice people in order to give in to this campaign’.
In the debate about the controversial State Secretary Patrick Graichen, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) accused the opposition of unfairly linking the personnel with their energy policy goals. In the ARD “Tagesthemen” on Wednesday evening, Habeck said that he had been experiencing “for several weeks now that insinuations, insults and, in some cases, lies are being spread with harshness and almost maliciousness in order to achieve a goal of preventing the decarbonization of climate protection in the heat sector. But he himself was “not prepared to sacrifice people in order to give in to this campaign”.
He admitted mistakes in the personnel, but did not want to make an inappropriate decision for tactical reasons, said Habeck with a view to demands for Graichen’s dismissal. Germany is currently in a political debate “how we want to warm up houses in the future,” said Habeck. “The question is oil and gas heating versus renewable heat”. The opposition is fighting for oil and gas heating and is using the controversial personnel to do so.
Graichen is criticized because he was involved in the original replacement of one of the two chief posts of the federal German Energy Agency (Dena). The post was initially awarded to the former Berlin Greens politician Michael Schäfer. Graichen is said not to have made it clear that Schäfer was his best man. After Schäfer’s private connections to the Federal Ministry of Economics became known, the Dena supervisory board decided last week to re-advertise the post.
After a hearing at a joint session of the Bundestag committees on economics and energy, Habeck said on Wednesday he had decided Graichen didn’t have to go. The Union and the left stuck to their demand for the dismissal of the state secretary.
CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja said in a current hour in the Bundestag that Graichen’s retirement “would have been the right decision”. So “unfortunately we have to talk again about Habeck’s green family clique”. Above all, however, Czaja criticized the policy of the Economics Minister in general. With a view to the planned heating law, he accused Habeck of “social coldness”.