Matthias Berninger for 13 years was a deputy from the German Green Party. And became the head of the press service of the giant chemical concern • Meduza • RIMA

Matthias Berninger for 13 years was a deputy from the German Green Party. And became the head of the press service of the giant chemical concern

Bayer appointed the German chemical concern the head of the department for public relations and government structures of the 47-year-old Matthias Beringer. In 1994, he was elected the youngest in history as a deputy of the Bundestag from the green faction.

Bernings worked in the German parliament for 13 years. In 2001-2005, he worked as a parliamentary state secretary of the German Food and Agriculture Ministry. Focus magazine calls the “piquant” detail that it was at this time that the department was increasingly playing for a healthy diet - and Berninger himself went to work in the Mars confectionery concern. From there, he left for several years in the USA.

As far as the deputy, Bernings was considered a supporter of the so -called “realistic” wing of the Green Party, who advocated a compromise between the environmental agenda and the interests of the German economy.

Now Berringer has to work on the image of the Bayer concern - after in the summer of 2016 he bought Monsanto. This company is called the “most hated in the world” for the largest production of the Roundup pesticide (active substance - glyphosate) and many dubious stories in the past . Despite the fact that the harmfulness of glyphosate was definitely not proven , in August 2018, the San Francisco court recovered $ 289 million from Monsanto in the suit of a patient with cancer.

“Green” in their program directly requires to abandon glyphosate as soon as possible and go “to agriculture, in which the use of chemical fertilizers is minimized”. “Glyphosate killer has become a synonym for industrial agriculture, which is based on chemical technologies and threatens the health of people and the environment,” the party program says. Focus notes that Bayer will have to speak the exact opposite as the main PR manager Bayer.

Announcing the future appointment in December, employees of the company’s press service admitted that they thought about how to imagine Berringger for three hours. In the end, they called him "the right person in the right place at the right time."

For three hours we thought about what original tweet would compose about this person - and in the end we decided: the best of all in the case. Therefore, simply: the right person at the right time is in the right place. Welcome, Matthias Bernings!

Dmitry Kartsev