According to a departmental spokeswoman speaking to “taz”‘s Friday edition, Alexander Dobrindt’s former Federal Ministry of the Interior reported using the so-called Haber procedure 51 times last year. This procedure allows projects or individuals to be vetted through an inquiry with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution before they can receive state funding. The Ministry did not disclose the outcomes of these 51 reviews.
With 51 documented cases, the Federal Ministry of the Interior currently leads all government departments in the frequency of using this process. “taz” requested data from every ministry regarding how often this procedure had been recently implemented. The Ministry of Culture reportedly used it only once more, in addition to the bookstores nominated for a book prize, but declined to provide details citing confidentiality. The Ministry of Research spoke of only “rare cases” in previous years, while the ministries overseeing family and development indicated that any assessed projects were only checked at the initial level-a comparison match against public intelligence reports. Other ministries stated they had not recently employed the procedure.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior had previously refused to answer an inquiry specifying how many Haber procedures it had utilized. Clara Bünger, Vice Chair of the Left party faction in the Bundestag, told the newspaper that even a specific parliamentary inquiry she submitted on March 12th remains unanswered. Bünger criticized the lack of transparency, stating that “it seems that the degree to which the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution intervenes in funding decisions and awards is being covered up”. She called this an “assault on parliamentary control” and further proof that the Haber procedure must be abolished, adding that they would not accept such “secrecy”.
The procedure first drew public attention in March when Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer (non-affiliated) used it for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to review three bookstores, subsequently removing them from the list of prize recipients for a book prize. This vetting process is based on an issuance from the Federal Ministry of the Interior dating back to 2017, and its stated goal is to prevent state funding from reaching extremist groups.
