The chairman of the controversial Climate Foundation Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, ex-Prime Minister Erwin Sellering (SPD), has again questioned the announced resignation of the board. In a letter to the chairman of the legal committee of the state parliament, which is available to the German Press Agency, Sellering wrote on Thursday: “It is becoming more and more a question of conscience for the board of directors as to whether they can keep their promise to resign if this is for obviously illegal action would be used.”
The background is that Sellering considers a dissolution of the climate foundation to be legally impossible because it has money and the purpose of the foundation – commitment to climate protection – can be fulfilled. However, Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) wants to get rid of the foundation because another purpose was to ensure the completion of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline for Russian natural gas against US threats of sanctions. Schwesig’s plan is to appoint a new board after the resignation of the old board, which will then dissolve the foundation.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Schwesig distanced himself from the pipeline project and from the foundation. The state parliament also demanded an end to the foundation. This was founded at the beginning of 2021 at the instigation of the state government and by decision of the state parliament.
In his letter, Sellering outlines what he sees as a possible way for the country to disengage from the foundation without dissolving it. This is possible, for example, by changing the statutes and appointing so-called born members from civil society, who then determine the board and board of trustees, Sellering explained at the request of the German Press Agency.
The opposition CDU was not surprised by the “resignation from resignation” on Thursday evening, as the parliamentary group leader Franz-Robert Liskow explained. “The state government continues to make the same mistake: it calculates without the host. And that’s Mr Sellering, apparently. And not Ms. Schwesig.” The FDP faction leader René Domke explained: “The state parliament decided unequivocally that the state government should dissolve the foundation. He hasn’t decided on what basis. But the state government must now also deliver or declare the non-practicability.”
