Economics: Veronika Grimm's supervisory board mandate at Siemens Energy was only examined informally

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Economics Veronika Grimm: The professor has been a member of the Siemens Energy supervisory board since the end of February

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IPON / IMAGO

The audit of the controversial supervisory board mandate of economist Veronika Grimm at Siemens Energy was less extensive than previously known. This emerges from a response from the Federal Ministry of Economics to the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which lists contacts between senior government representatives and the advisory committee on the topic. Accordingly, there were no discussions before the nomination was announced in December. In mid-January, the head of the Wirtschaftsweise, Monika Schnitzer, spoke to State Secretary for Economic Affairs Sven Giegold for the first time.

Grimm himself, like Schnitzer, later spoke to Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt and Budget State Secretary Wolf Heinrich Reuter, but not to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. There, the case was only examined informally in advance at a specialist level, with no fundamental objections being raised and reference being made to the independence of the economists.

In mid-February, the remaining council members asked Grimm to choose between the supervisory board mandate and her role as an economic manager. They warned of conflicts of interest for Grimm's work in the Advisory Council if it comments on energy policy issues in the future. Grimm is a proven expert on this topic, and at the same time Siemens Energy is an important player in the planned energy transition.

Grimm refused to withdraw on the grounds that her nomination had been “clarified by both the federal ministries and Siemens Energy AG. The compliance issues were examined comprehensively and carefully."

The late involvement of the management level could explain why the conflict escalated to such an extent: the other economists had also sent their appeal to Grimm to Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Chancellor Schmidt. Grimm, in turn, also copied Finance Minister Christian Lindner in her answer. This fueled the suspicion that there was also a power struggle within the coalition behind the scandal.

“What value does such an audit have if it bypasses the management level of the ministry?” criticizes BSW politician Christian Leye. Economists are now also discussing tighter compliance rules internally, as Leye is calling for.