In view of an internal dispute within the Council of Economic Experts over the role of economist Veronika Grimm, she has received backing from the German government.

From the point of view of the Federal Ministry of Finance, there are no legal reasons against a possible double mandate and thus for the exclusion of the economist from the Council of Economic Experts, the news agency Reuters learned from the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday. The background to the dispute is that Grimm is to become a member of the supervisory board at Siemens Energy. Economist Ulrike Malmendier criticized Grimm's intention to join the supervisory board of the DAX-listed company next Monday. "I and the other three council members are very concerned about this case," the economist told Die Zeit.

According to media reports, four of the five so-called economic experts have called on Grimm to leave the Council of Experts if she accepts a corresponding mandate at the energy technology group. Head of the Chancellery Wolfgang Schmidt, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) and Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) have also been informed of the conflict of objectives by email. "The majority of the German Council of Economic Experts sees the nomination of Veronika Grimm to the Supervisory Board of Siemens Energy as an honor. Nevertheless, this nomination presents the Expert Council with a challenge," reads a statement by Council Chairwoman Monika Schnitzer and members Achim Truger, Ulrike Malmendier and Martin Werding, which was made available to Reuters on Wednesday.

They point out that the German Council of Economic Experts Act of 1963 does not exclude the election of a Council member to a supervisory board: "In the public perception, however, the awareness of compliance issues has increased and is more important in the debate, but also in the positioning of companies and groups, than it was ten or 15 years ago, for example."

The four Council members not involved agree that there are potential conflicts of interest in this constellation. These affect the work of the Expert Council in core areas: "Because the upcoming energy transformation is of outstanding economic and economic policy importance. Veronika Grimm's expertise is therefore of great value in the Council's work."

(Report by Christian Krämer, Reinhard Becker, edited by Christian Götz. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)