German coal commission‘s member list complete – report

The list of members of Germany’s coal commission is complete, Spiegel Online reports. Gerda Hasselfeldt, the former parliamentary group leader of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU, will reportedly join the body officially known as the “Commission on Growth, Structural Economic Change and Employment” and tasked with planning the phaseout of coal-fired power production in the country. According to the energate website, her appointment might have been the reason for the commission being delayed a week earlier. The commission now has 31 members, and its inaugural meeting is scheduled for 26 June, Spiegel Online says. Three members of parliament will also join the commission without voting rights, namely Andreas Lämmel from the CDU, Andreas Lenz from the CSU, and Matthias Miersch from the Social Democrats (SPD). The commission’s leaders will be Deutsche Bahn board member and former Chancellery chief Ronald Pofalla(conservative); former Saxony state premier Stanislaw Tillich(conservative); former Brandenburg state premier Matthias Platzeck (social democrat); and climate economist Barbara Praetorius, the article says. Green Party co-leader Annalena Baerbock has criticised the commission’s composition for not including any politician from the opposition in the federal parliament.

Read the Spiegel article in German here, and the energate article in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet on Germany’s coal exit commission for background.