Robert Habeck is probably getting additional expertise in his Ministry of Economic Affairs: Elga Bartsch is to head the “Economic Policy” department in the future. It should shape the economic orientation. It is another step in a major reorganization at the ministry. However, the personnel is not fixed yet.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck restructures his house. It was said from circles in the ministry that he wanted to make the Ministry of Economics more effective in the energy and economic crisis and in future tasks. Habeck has also brought top economist Elga Bartsch to the ministry. The former European chief economist at the investment bank Morgan Stanley and former top economist at the asset manager Blackrock is to head the economic policy department in the future. This personnel has yet to be confirmed by the Federal Cabinet.
According to the “Handelsblatt”, she will formally be working in the third tier of the ministry. But the management of “Department 1” has a special status that is historically shaped. Alfred Müller-Armack held this position under the CDU Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard. He is regarded as the real pioneer of the social market economy.
Bartsch is now to shape the economic orientation of the ministry together with the responsible State Secretary Sven Giegold. The task is particularly relevant now because the federal government has set itself the goal with the coalition agreement of forming a social-ecological market economy from Müller-Armack’s.
“With her, the Federal Ministry of Economics gains in-depth macroeconomic expertise, including fiscal policy and monetary policy. Her research makes her an expert on the risks of climate change for the economy and their economic modelling,” said the Ministry of Economics about Bartsch.
Overall, according to the ministry, “synergies will be created, forces will be pooled and new tasks will be firmly anchored in terms of organization and personnel”. At the beginning of October, the ministry set up the new Department for Energy Security and Economic Stabilization headed by Philipp Steinberg, in which the tasks and sections of different departments were brought together.
In addition, according to the ministry, it has now concentrated tasks more clearly, sharpened the profiles of the respective departments and strengthened their work. “Redundancies that arose from the merger with the climate protection area from the Ministry of the Environment will also be eliminated,” the ministry said.
