Sebastian Lechner, the state chair of the CDU in Lower Saxony, has criticized the abolition of the Lower Saxony European Ministry by the newly designated Minister President, Olaf Lies (SPD). In an interview with the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” Lechner stated, “He is now setting up a highly centralized super-ministry, because micromanagement is his style of government, just like it was with Stephan Weil before.”
Lechner added that Olaf Lies sees himself as the “central chief” and criticized the incumbent Lower Saxony Minister of Economics and designating Minister President for two economic promotion programs worth over 200 million euros. “In neither of them has more than a million euros been used. The rules for these promotion programs are too detailed, because Lies wants to control everything down to the smallest detail.” On the other hand, Lechner himself claims to trust the people more. “This is our political alternative to a red-green government.