Economy Minister Katherina Reiche (CDU) has not yet met any representatives of nature or environmental protection associations. The energy lobby, by contrast, tells a different story.
afp | Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Katherina Reiche (CDU) has not, since taking office about a year ago, met any representatives of nature conservation associations or the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv). “Meetings with representatives from BUND, NABU, Greenpeace, DUH, Deutscher Naturschutzring, Germanwatch and vzbv have not taken place at ministerial level,” a ministry spokesman told the Funke media group newspapers (Monday edition). Representatives of environmental associations describe the relationship with the Ministry of Economic Affairs as extraordinarily poor.
The only contact of the German League for Nature Conservation (DNR) – an umbrella organization of the environmental associations – with the ministry at the leadership level was a collective meeting with a state secretary, Tobias Pforte-von Randow, deputy political director of the DNR, told the Funke newspapers. “In my view, contact with the ministry’s top has never been as bad as it is currently.”
The federal managing director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), Sascha Müller-Kranner, said that, regardless of party color, there had always been an exchange between the ministry leadership and the environmental associations in the past. “There was always the willingness to listen to arguments – but that is happening under this top leadership only to a very limited extent,” he told the Funke newspapers.
Reiche has had numerous meetings with representatives of the major energy companies according to her ministry. “The Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy has since the beginning of her term met with representatives from EnBW, RWE, EON and LEAG in the context of bilateral talks, roundtables, company visits and other public events,” the spokesman said.
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