From 2003 to 2013, Steffi Lemke, now 53, from Saxony-Anhalt, was federal executive director of the Green Party. Afterwards, as a member of the German Bundestag, the studied agronomist and trained zoo technician devoted herself primarily to issues of environmental protection and nature conservation with a focus on the fight against the destruction of the marine habitat. Whether Lemke will actually become environment minister still depends on the result of the ballot among the 125,000 members of The Greens on the coalition agreement and personnel tableau, which runs until 6 December.

As reported by Der Spiegel, Lemke has already made her decision regarding her two civil servant state secretary posts. On the one hand, Christiane Rohleder, who most recently worked as state secretary in Rhineland-Palatinate for the local minister for consumer protection and designated federal family minister, Anne Spiegel, is to move to the federal environment ministry. Secondly, the political scientist Stefan Tidow, who previously worked as State Secretary in the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, is now to do so for the federal government. Rohleder is a lawyer and already has experience in federal government work, where she also worked on topics of consumer protection in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the Federal Ministry of Justice before her time in Rhineland-Palatinate.

The future Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection will change in terms of competences: The responsibility for climate protection will move to the Federal Ministry of Economics, according to the agreements in the coalition agreement, while the responsibility for consumer protection will return to the Ministry of the Environment, what also is the reason for the second state secretary post.

 

Sources:

• euwid-recycling.de (11/26/2021)
• spiegel.de (12/2/2021)
• Photo: @ Bündnis90/The Greens