Green foreign minister uses government plane to fly from Euros match to EU meeting

Ms Baerbock's Greens also support climate taxes on short-haul flights so that travellers use trains instead - Michael Kappeler

Germany’s Green foreign minister used a government plane to fly just 114 miles from a Euros match in Frankfurt to an EU meeting in Luxembourg, amid cries of hypocrisy.

Annalena Baerbock used the government plane to take the short journey, which can be done in four to five hours by train, on June 23 after watching Germany draw with Switzerland.

The taxpayer-funded flight had a special permit to break Frankfurt’s ban on night flights, which is only granted in cases where the travel is in the public interest.

But the move has been criticised by the right-wing FDP party, as Ms Baerbock’s Greens also support climate taxes on short-haul flights so that travellers use trains instead.

“It shows how seriously the Greens take their own base,” Dr Stefan Naas, an FDP MP, told German tabloid Bild. “This is the finest kind of Greens double-talk: make citizens feel bad about flying and then circumvent the night flight ban to travel from Frankfurt to Luxembourg. As the crow flies it’s 184.36 kilometres. Really?”

Ms Baerbock (pictured center left) at the Euros game - Kevin Voigt

The German foreign office has defended the use of the government flight, while the Ministry of foreign affairs in the state of Hesse also said the flight was in the public interest.

Ms Baerbock posed for photographs with Karl Lauterbach, the German health minister, wearing a white German sports shirt in the stadium while watching the match.

She then travelled to Luxembourg for a session the following morning of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, which mainly discussed the Russian war on Ukraine.

Officials in Frankfurt said there were two government flights which used a permit to break the city’s 11pm night flight ban, introduced to help residents near the airport sleep peacefully.

The other plane was used by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to return to Berlin with other members of the federal government.

Ms Baerbock herself has said she is in favour of “climate-friendly taxes on flights” which make short-haul trips so expensive that they are no longer worth using.

A spokesman for the state of Hesse’s economy ministry said: “Two flights of the Bundeswehr air force took off on 23.06.2024 with Chancellor Scholz and foreign minister Baerbock on board, after the Germany-Switzerland game, at 11:39 p.m. and 11:54 p.m respectively. The authorities recognised the public interest for both flights.”

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