Bettina Stark-Watzinger: Bundestag discusses the subsidy scandal again – Politics

If it were up to Bettina Stark-Watzinger, the debate on Thursday should not have taken place at all. The Federal Minister of Education has repeatedly stressed in recent weeks that her ministry had “created comprehensive transparency” about the so-called funding scandal. The members of the Union parliamentary group saw things differently – and invited the Minister of Education to a debate in the Bundestag after a major question that received a rather sparse response. “We tried to provide information, but you systematically thwarted it,” said Thomas Jarzombek, education policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, in the plenary session on Thursday.

Stark-Watzinger has been wrestling with her funding scandal since June. It concerns her ministry’s handling of an open letter in which scientists criticized the clearing of a pro-Palestinian protest camp at the Free University of Berlin. Stark-Watzinger’s office was to examine whether the signatory scientists could be deprived of funding. This contradicts “not only academic freedom, but also the spirit of the principles of free societies,” said Oliver Kaczmarek, education policy spokesman for the SPD on Thursday.

State Secretary Sabine Döring is still not allowed to comment

Since the allegations were made, Stark-Watzinger has had to comment on them again and again, in the government questioning in the Bundestag, in the Federal Education Committee, and in a minor inquiry by the Union faction. She repeatedly stressed that she only learned about the events in her ministry from the media, that she had not initiated a corresponding investigation, and that she had not even known about it. In June, Stark-Watzinger fired her state secretary Sabine Döring, who is said to have issued the order due to a misunderstanding but then immediately stopped it.

Critics see Sabine Döring as a pawn. Leaks of internal chat messages, which have since been made public, at least sow doubts about the ministry’s statements. They suggest, for example, that Sabine Döring did not write an email to ministry employees in which she admitted her responsibility for the audit order entirely voluntarily. “If everything that was published is true, then Professor Döring was pressured to write this email before she was fired,” CDU MP Jarzombek accused Stark-Watzinger on Thursday.

Stark-Watzinger himself did not comment

Sabine Döring is not allowed to comment on the matter yet because the ministry has not released her from her duty of confidentiality. The administrative court in Minden has rejected an urgent application in which she demands to be allowed to speak. In its ruling, the court also states that the press release that the ministry sent out after her dismissal does not indicate that Döring actually initiated the funding review.

Stark-Watzinger has repeatedly contradicted herself in her statements on the funding scandal, said Left Party MP Nicole Gohlke on Thursday. “You silenced an official who contradicted you.” You initially wanted to prevent the release of files and then only released blacked-out, unusable files. You are doing the opposite of what you as the FDP want to stand for.” FDP MP Ria Schröder jumped to the defense of her party colleague, saying that the accusations against the minister were being exaggerated and that it was a “personal vendetta” by the opposition.

Bettina Stark-Watzinger herself was in the plenary hall during the debate on Thursday, but did not speak. “The bottom line is that crisis communication can sometimes make things bigger,” said SPD MP Kaczmarek in his speech to her.