Germany’s Family Minister, Anne Spiegel is under pressure to resign over her decision to go on holiday 10 days after the floods.
Floods devastated parts of western Germany last summer, when she was a Minister in the regional government.
Her coalition colleagues, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Monday expressed some degree of understanding for her explanation during an occasion.
She said in a tearful news conference Sunday as to why she decided to take four weeks of annual leave with her family.
However, after a regional Minister stepped down for similar reasons last week, the conservative opposition is increasing its calls for Spiegel to go, a step her government and party colleagues have not ruled out.
On Sunday evening, the Green Party politician, who was environment minister in the state of Rhineland Palatinate at the time, described the holiday as a mistake and apologized.
However, she did not offer to resign.
She said her family needed a holiday partly because of the state of health of her husband, who had suffered a stroke in March 2019. “He could no longer cope,’’ she said.
With her voice faltering at times, Spiegel said the coronavirus pandemic had been an insane challenge for her family and clearly left its mark on her four children, who are of nursery and primary school age.
The holiday in France which neighbours Rhineland Palatinate was nevertheless an error.
“It was a mistake that we went on holiday for so long and I apologize for that mistake.’’
Spiegel also had to correct a previous statement that she took part in a cabinet meeting during her holiday. The event was in her diary, but she had not taken part.
However, Spiegel said, she had always been available if someone needed to reach her and had made work phone calls.
The Greens are the second-largest party in Scholz’s three-way, centre-left coalition.
Scholz works closely and with great trust” with Spiegel, his office said on Monday.
Deputy spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann said Scholz had seen Spiegel’s statement before the cameras on Sunday.
“This appearance also moved and affected him personally,’’ Hoffman said.
Spiegel’s Green Party colleague, Economy Minister Robert Habeck, said he was similarly moved.
The leaders of the Greens are meeting behind closed doors to discuss the situation. According to reports in the Bild tabloid, party leaders asked Spiegel to resign on Sunday evening, but she asked to be given another chance.
Rhineland Palatinate suffered the most fatalities in the mid-July flooding.
The pressure on her comes days after the resignation of a conservative environment Minister in the western state of North Rhine Westphalia, Ursula Heinen-Esser, who was found to have gone on holiday in Mallorca just a few days after the floods hit.
Following elections last autumn, Germany has been governed by a three-way coalition of the Social Democrats – the party of Chancellor Scholz – the Greens and the Free Democrats.