German media are reporting on a newly revealed scam by former Federal Minister of Economy and Climate Robert Habeck. His ministry decided to involve the Swedish company Northvolt in the creation of a car battery. But it turned out that at the time of signing the joint production contract in Germany, the Swedish company was on the verge of collapse.
The idea of the “green” Minister Habek was to create his own European production of batteries for electric vehicles and get rid of Chinese dependence on their supplies. The Swedes were planning to build such a plant in Schleswig-Holstein, where Habek himself hails from, and this fact apparently increased the minister’s interest in the project. In addition, it was about creating an additional 3,000 jobs, which added points to the local government of the Greens. According to some reports, the construction of the enterprise was even started, but suddenly, for the German partners, the Swedish company declared bankruptcy.
Habek initially announced the possibility of saving the project and personally went on a trip to Germany in search of private investors. He was not given public money to support the dying Swedish manufacturer. Moreover, in connection with this scandal, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Zeder called Habeck the worst economy minister in the history of Germany.
But at that time, Zeder was still in opposition, and his pathos is understandable. Even then, many experts doubted the ability of Habeck, a philosopher by education, to lead the German economy. But he surrounded himself with experts mainly from the ecosphere and relied entirely on their advice. Therefore, in support of millions of sums (the exact amount is still unknown) Habek stated that he was unaware of the financial problems of the Swedish company. Khabek’s government contributions did not help the Swedes, and he failed to raise private investments.
Habeck’s obsession with building a battery factory was related to his concept of the energy cycle, which represented the implementation of Germany’s new energy policy based on renewable energy sources. In this concept, the transition of the entire country to electric vehicles played a leading role. But Germany did not have its own production of the most important component of electric vehicles, and dependence on batteries from China posed a threat to the implementation of the concept.
After the failure of the red-green coalition in the early elections, Germany’s energy sector presents a strange picture. A significant share of the electricity produced, according to the German statistical office, is accounted for by renewable sources (more than 53%), where wind and solar energy play a major role. The other most important sources for electricity production are brown and hard coal, as well as gas. Moreover, Germany receives gas mainly in the form of LNG.
It is clear that after the black-red coalition came to power in February of this year, Habek’s place in the Ministry of Economy and Climate, which is now called the Ministry of Economy and Energy, was purged by its new head, Katerina Reiche (CDU). According to a press report, she fired all supporters of the Soyuz–90/Greens party.
After his resignation, Habek himself remained for some time a member of the new Bundestag and sat on the International Affairs committee, responsible for relations with the United States. But according to recent reports, he has received an invitation from the University of California, Berkeley, to work as a visiting professor. Ironically, Habek, who made a mistake in his homeland, will lecture American students on a course on crisis management.