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On the move on energy issues: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is promoting a hydrogen partnership between the Central Asian state and Germany in Kazakhstan
Photo: Fabian Sommer / dpa
A top man from the Greens is to promote the interests of a group that often serves as the target of environmental and climate protests.
Titus Rebhann is moving to the energy giant RWE as head of the capital's representative office, reports the "Welt".
The company could not be reached for comment on Monday evening.
Rebhann has so far been the office manager of Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), in whose Bundestag office he previously had the same job, after several years in the service of the current North Rhine-Westphalian Environment Minister Oliver Krischer.
The newspaper learned from RWE that he had applied to the group himself and would be supporting the “transformation” there from March 1, 2023.
His job description includes »accompanying the political opinion-forming processes on key energy-related issues and positioning RWE as a competent partner in the field of renewable energies«.
However, Rebhann should deliberately not lobby the Foreign Office.
Green deal with RWE
Baerbock's office also carries weight in terms of energy policy.
On Monday, the Foreign Minister in Kazakhstan promoted cooperation in the field of green hydrogen using wind and solar power.
According to Baerbock, a project on the Caspian Sea stands for a common and sustainable future.
With the visit, she wants to tie the Central Asian region between Russia and China more closely to Western Europe and at the same time explore alternatives for supplying Europe.
The Greens in the federal government and in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are being criticized for a current deal with RWE: In return for the promise to end lignite mining in the Rhenish area as early as 2030, the group is allowed to excavate more coal in the Garzweiler II opencast mine in the short term.
With that, the abandoned village of Lützerath, now a protest camp and symbolic site of the climate movement, also fell.
ahh/dpa