Federal Family Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens) described her four-week family vacation after the flood disaster last summer as a mistake and apologized for it – and provided a personal reason for the mistake.
“It was a mistake that we went on vacation for so long and I apologize for this mistake,” said the Green politician on Sunday evening in Berlin.
She justified her decision at the time with the health of her husband, who had previously suffered a stroke.
Her family needed the vacation “because my husband couldn’t take it anymore,” said the 41-year-old, who faltered several times during the statement.
Spiegel has four children. She did not comment on the resignation demands from the opposition.
It had previously become known that the Environment Minister at the time in Rhineland-Palatinate had left for a four-week family vacation in France ten days after the flood and had only interrupted it once for a site visit in the Ahr Valley.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz had called for Spiegel’s dismissal. Several other Union politicians and the family policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group, Martin Reichardt, demanded Spiegel’s resignation.
