The head of Messe Berlin, which was involved in the RBB crisis, Martin Ecknig, sees no misconduct on his part. He told the “Berliner Morgenpost” when asked whether he had made mistakes: “Others have to judge that. I say to myself: No, I haven’t made any mistakes.”
There are allegations of nepotism against the resigned chief trade fair supervisor Wolf-Dieter Wolf and the director of broadcasting Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), Patricia Schlesinger, who was fired without notice. Both rejected the allegations. Wolf had also been chief supervisor of the public broadcaster ARD in personal union – Schlesinger’s husband and ex-“Spiegel” journalist Gerhard Spörl had received several orders from Messe Berlin. Among other things, he coached the trade fair boss.
Investigations are currently underway at the state-owned trade fair, and the Senate administration is also involved. Ecknig explained Wolf’s role in the awarding of the contract to Spörl: “He made the suggestion that I get to know Mr. Spörl. He was not directly involved in awarding the contract.”
Wolf had withdrawn from the supervisory board in August “to avoid possible damage to Messe Berlin GmbH and also not to burden the ongoing investigations,” as the Senate Department for Economics had announced.
When asked about the lessons that can be drawn from the whole thing, the trade fair boss said: “Our systems are robust and have also proven themselves. We have nothing to correct when it comes to tenders.” At the same time, he also said in the interview: “We will certainly learn something from this so that we can deal with similar situations even more consciously in the future.”
The supervisory board of the state-owned trade fair will meet on Thursday. It is expected that there will be at least an interim status of the ongoing investigations.
