North Rhine-Westphalia: Heinen-Esser in the lobby register of the Bundestag

Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU), NRW Environment Minister who resigned last April in connection with the "Mallorca affair", has reactivated her own consulting company.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Heinen-Esser in the lobby register of the Bundestag

Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - Ursula Heinen-Esser (CDU), NRW Environment Minister who resigned last April in connection with the "Mallorca affair", has reactivated her own consulting company. A few days ago, Heinen-Esser registered as a lobbyist in the Bundestag's lobby register. After inspecting the lobby register, the state government forwarded the entry to the ministerial honor commission for examination, a spokeswoman for the state chancellery said on Thursday in Düsseldorf on request. The news portal t-online had previously reported about it.

According to its own website, the company that Heinen-Essers runs with her husband is called "EH Strategische Beratung". Areas of interest mentioned in the lobby register include: energy policy, nuclear energy, agriculture and forestry, consumer protection. The lobby agency Eutop is named as the customer.

Last year, the Minister Honors Commission and the NRW state cabinet had already dealt with Heinen-Esser's intended and requested activity and approved it under one condition: During the first twelve months after leaving office, i.e. until April 7th 2023, she would have to “declare her bias” if, in individual cases, official knowledge from her time as minister was incorporated.

Heinen-Esser resigned as NRW Environment Minister five weeks before the state elections. It had previously become known that the minister had only briefly interrupted her stay in Mallorca despite the flood disaster that killed 49 people in North Rhine-Westphalia in July 2021, then flew back to Mallorca and celebrated her husband's birthday there with other members of the government.