Hendrik Wüst (CDU) refrained from the quick tit-for-tat on Monday morning.

When the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia was asked about Federal Minister for Family Affairs Anne Spiegel (Greens) on the fringes of a meeting in Wuppertal, he did not formulate an explicit demand for her resignation.

The Green politician took a four-week vacation after the devastating July flood in her previous position as Environment Minister in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Wüst uses the Causa Spiegel only for a subtle relief attack.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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"SPD and Greens have raised their morale very high here in North Rhine-Westphalia in the last week and judged Ursula Heinen-Esser," says Wüst, referring to his environment minister, who gave up her post on Thursday.

Now the SPD and the Greens would have to clarify "whether these claims apply independently of the party book or were only due to the election campaign".

Bit by bit it had become known in the past few days and weeks that shortly after the flood disaster, Heinen-Esser flew back to Mallorca not only for four, but for nine more days as initially stated, and then at the weekend before her return, Minister of Construction Ina Scharrenbach, Minister for Europe Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner and Secretary of State for Integration Serap Güler (all CDU) were guests at her husband's birthday party.

Therefore, the so-called Mallorca affair for the opposition with the resignation of Heinen-Esser is far from being settled.

Less than five weeks before the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the SPD and the Greens see the chance to drive the Union along almost at will.

What did Wust know?

There are plenty of starting points that can be easily scandalized: While many victims and helpers in the flooded areas were still knee-deep in mud, Minister of Construction Scharrenbach - who is also responsible for reconstruction in the flooded areas - set off for the Mallorca weekend.

And with Holthoff-Pförtner "there is also a minister directly from the State Chancellery involved in the affair", as the SPD put it;

in fact, the Europe Resort is located in the government headquarters.

The opposition is now trying to focus more and more on Wüst.

This is not such a trivial undertaking, because Wüst has only been prime minister for a good six months.

Before succeeding Armin Laschet, the Union's hapless candidate for chancellor, in October, Wüst was Minister of Transport.

Wüst asserts that he only found out about the Mallorca birthday round "only now in the course of the enlightenment from Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser about her longer stay" on the Balearic island.

The prime minister did not give an exact date.

On March 24, she casually revealed in a newspaper interview that the Minister of the Environment, who was responsible for the disposal of the vast amounts of rubbish and debris after the flood, had not stayed four but nine days in Mallorca.

On Thursday, another newspaper publicized Heinen-Esser's Mallorcan birthday party with cabinet guests.

In the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU there is an acute danger of smoldering fire in many places.

At their political base in Cologne, Heinen-Esser put out a fire himself on Monday.

Heinen-Esser is a direct candidate in a Cologne constituency and also secured sixth place on the CDU state list.

Heinen-Esser said in writing that afternoon that she could not withdraw her candidacy for legal reasons, but "of course I will take responsibility in Cologne, just as I did in Düsseldorf, and in the event of an election I will not accept it".

On the sidelines of an appointment at an asparagus farm on the Lower Rhine, Prime Minister Wüst commented briefly and noticeably mildly that Federal Education Minister Anne Spiegel would resign on Monday afternoon.

"The step is understandable," says Wüst.

He then refers to what he said after Heinen-Esser's resignation and similarly in Wuppertal in the morning with reference to Spiegel: In general, it must be possible "that people with a family, even with small children, can do politics.

I think we are all well-advised not to overburden this tension between family and politics.”