decision next week
Hofreiter as a railway supervisory board in conversation
May 3, 2022, 7:01 p.m
When it comes to the distribution of ministerial posts, the Green politician comes away empty-handed. Most recently, Anton Hofreiter made a name for himself as a critic of the chancellor and advocate of arms deliveries to Ukraine. Now he is being traded as a new addition to the Deutsche Bahn supervisory board. It is unclear whether he wants that.
According to a media report, Green politician Anton Hofreiter is to become a member of the Deutsche Bahn supervisory board. As the news portal “The Pioneer” reported, the mobility working group of the Greens parliamentary group has agreed to send Hofreiter to the control body of the federally owned group. The proposal by the transport politicians is now before the parliamentary group leadership. At its next meeting next Tuesday, the parliamentary group should decide on the personnel.
As was learned from Green faction circles, no decision has yet been made as to whether Hofreiter should be nominated for the railway supervisory board. Hofreiter’s office said on request that he did not want to comment. It is already clear that Dorothee Martin for the SPD parliamentary group and Bernd Reuther for the FDP should be on the supervisory board of the railways. Both are transport policy spokespersons for their parliamentary groups.
Didn’t get any ministerial posts
The long-time faction leader Hofreiter headed the transport committee of the Bundestag from 2011 to 2013. He is currently Chairman of the European Committee of the Bundestag. Hofreiter unexpectedly had to hold back when filling the cabinet posts when the traffic light government was formed. For example, he was under discussion as the future Federal Minister of Transport. The department then went to the FDP. Hofreiter’s Green party colleague, Cem Özdemir, was given the post of Minister of Agriculture, which triggered a painful dispute among the Greens. Unlike Özdemir, Hofreiter belongs to the left spectrum of the party.
Hofreiter had recently repeatedly criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s course in the Ukraine war and accused the Social Democrats of acting too hesitantly. Hofreiter had demanded that Ukraine also be supplied with heavy weapons. He compared Scholz to his predecessor Angela Merkel and summed it up: “Scholz is very similar to Merkel, that’s the problem.”