The younger brother of Germany’s vice-chancellor and economics minister Robert Habeck (Greens), has come under fire for alleged wasteful spending of taxpayer money.
On January 30, German magazine Tichys Einblick targeted Hinrich Habeck over a public programme to designed attract foreign workers to Germany that had only managed to place five people during an entire year – despite a multi-million budget.
Hinrich is the manager of the state development agency WFSH in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost State.
He was appointed to his €160,000-a-year public management position in April 2022 when his brother was already vice-chancellor and federal minister.
In December 2023, the state government – a coalition between the Conservatives and the Greens – tasked WFSH with setting up a “Welcome Centre”. That was intended to attract skilled foreign workers and place them with local employers.
According to a recent study, Schleswig-Holstein will require around 180,000 more skilled workers by 2035.
The Welcome Centre was set up in an office building in downtown Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein.
It started out with 10 employees, which rose to 14 according to the agency’s homepage. Its official budget amounted to €13 million until 2028 or €2.6 million annually, it stated.
An inquest by the Social Democrats (SPD) in Schleswig-Holstein’s parliament has now revealed that in the whole of of 2024 the Welcome Centre only managed to place five workers with local employers.
Its mission to promote Schleswig-Holstein as a place for work seemed to have been equally unsinspiring.
On Instagram, it has a total of eight followers. Advertising itself as a great “work-beach-balance” workplace in the coastal state, total opening hours amounted to 22 hours per week.
Serpil Midylati, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Schlewsig-Holstein, was critical, saying the centre had not turned out to be what the government had promised.
Heiner Garg of the Liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) party said the project had gone “down the drain”.
“In reality, one public authority is advising another,” he told German media.
“The Habeck does not fall far from the tree,” sniped publicist Roland Tichy with regard to Robert Habeck’s allegedly unsuccessful reign as economy minister.
Before joining WFSH, Hinrich, a biologist, ran a lobbying organisation for the biotech sector in Hamburg.
It was not the first Schleswig-Holstein employee placement programme to have raised eyebrows.
In September 2024, the city of Flensburg (Schleswig-Holstein) hired several Kenyans who moved to Germany to be taught how to drive public buses over the course of several months – as well as to learn German.
One of the co-founders of the company and who orchestrated the placement titled Skillution, was Torsten Albig, former head of government of Schleswig-Holstein.
