Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) wants to significantly reduce the climate-damaging short-haul flights of her soldiers and officials between the offices of her department in Bonn and Berlin.
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According to SPIEGEL information, all department heads were warned by instructions that the top management expected "a significant reduction in the number of flights caused by the division". The goal for the coming months is to "reduce the CO2 emissions caused so far," the statement said.
As a result, the superiors should now check carefully on every business trip whether the employee's trip is necessary at all. With each approved trip, the "possibility for priority use of rail-bound travel means" should also be considered.
The directive also suggests alternatives to travel to the other place of employment. For example, personal meetings are to be increasingly replaced by video conferences. To this end, particularly travel-friendly departments are currently being equipped with the appropriate technology.
Kramp-Karrenbauer has set ambitious climate targets for her house. According to the internal paper, the military department is to become climate-neutral by 2023, but this is only possible with additional flights to compensate for fewer flights.
The number of Defense Ministry flights on Bonn-Berlin flights is immense. According to internal statistics, the 2,700 employees and soldiers who work for the ministry booked around 5000 flights between the new and the old government seat in 2018. In the first eight months of 2019 alone, more than 3100 tickets were ordered.
In total, Kramp-Karrenbauer's Ministeriale had around 13,440 official domestic flights in 2018.
The instruction is likely to cause unrest in the ministry. For example, the train is not considered a real alternative for day appointments in Bonn or Berlin among officials, since it takes a good four hours instead of just under an hour by train.
According to the travel regulations for all ministries, soldiers and officials are free to book the logistically cheapest means of travel for them.
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