Harsh criticism and even to demands for resignation from their own ranks: The dispute over the location of a new battery research center has earned Research Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU) a lot of trouble. On Wednesday she posed questions in the Bundestag's Research Committee on the controversial selection process - and gave herself up after the non-public meeting.
Karliczek himself did not want to comment on a SPIEGEL inquiry on the survey. Participants said that they had made small mistakes in procedural details, such as the name of the panel.
The CDU politician is said to have said in the survey that you could certainly choose for this body a more precise name as a founding commission. The founding commission should not make a final decision, but merely have an advisory function. "In the future we will formulate more precisely," the minister said according to participants.
On the merits, however, she continues to stand by the decision and has rejected allegations. Your ministry had treated all the countries involved equally in advance and during the selection process, said the CDU politician, according to information from participant circles. Karliczek had emphasized this in advance in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung. One can however argue about whether the process was "100 percent happy."
It's about a lot of money
The background: According to a decision of the Federal Ministry of Research, a center for battery cell research is to be established at the University of Münster. However, the selection process for this location is massively in the criticism, according to SPIEGEL research, the process was not clean.
The experts of the founding commission should have been withheld information that spoke against the location of Münster. The allegations are all the more piquant, as the federal constituency of Karliczek in the immediate vicinity. Other locations favored by experts, such as the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg in Ulm, were not included.
It's about a lot of money: With 500 million euros to be funded in the next few years battery research. Much of it is intended for the planned factory.
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The decision called for criticism from the opposition and from other regions. The Baden-Württemberg Minister of Culture Susanne Eisenmann (CDU), even demanded Karliczek's resignation. The Minister had always rejected the allegations.
"Chaotic from A to Z"
After questioning in the committee on Wednesday, representatives of the FDP and the Greens revolted again: The Minister could not clear the allegations in the meeting and show no serious willingness to make mistakes, said Anna Christmann, spokeswoman for innovation and technology policy, and Kai Gehring , responsible for research, science and university, from the Greens with.
"The procurement process was chaotic from A to Z, characterized by ignorance of external expertise and inscrutable changes in the criteria," said the Green Party politicians. It is unacceptable that Karliczek ruled out an independent examination of the procedure. "We think this is still necessary." Christmann and Gehring demanded that the minister take on "political responsibility".
"Duped as an MP"
... "I feel lied to," said the education policy spokesman of the FDP, Thomas Sattelberger, "and as a deputy duped." That the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) had preliminary prioritizing site assessments was revealed by the written evaluations that were written by Fraunhofer.
"Ulm: The application is very detailed and extensive." As well as: "In the evaluation, the location receives the best result in a target achievement of 86 percent." To Muenster it says in the paper, the application lies with 78 percent in midfield. However, in the committee, the ministerial officials continued to assert that there was no preliminary prioritization, no ranking order.
"Those responsible ignored and made small-scale the knowledge and elaborate analyzes of the experts and castrated the founding commission," said Sattelberger. "I'm not interested in whether Ms. Karliczek wanted to favor Ibbenbüren - I'm interested in how messed up the processes in the ministry are."
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