Since the end of 2016, Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel has been negotiating with the State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Jochen Flasbarth, about the use of € 21 million, which the energy supply companies paid to the Endlager Konrad Stiftungsgesellschaft mbH in December 2016 in accordance with the agreement on the Salzgitter Fund concluded between the federal government and the energy supply companies on June 25, 2009.

Lord Mayor Klingebiel clarifies: "As Lord Mayor and Chairman of the Foundation's Board of Trustees, it was and is important to me that the Foundation's Board of Trustees only has access to foundation funds that are not tied to the commissioning of Schacht Konrad and for which there is no repayment obligation to the energy supply companies or the federal government. The city of Salzgitter has unequivocally upheld its demand for a reassessment of the Konrad mine and the retrievability of the waste with unanimous council resolutions and a resolution supported by a large majority in the region. After 19 months of intensive negotiations, I have now received the written legal information I requested from the Federal Ministry for the Environment."

Klingebiel announced: "At its meeting on 1 August 2018, the Board of Trustees of Endlager Konrad Stiftungsgesellschaft mbH approved the 12 applications with a total volume of €527,990.09 that it had initially deferred in May 2018 on the basis of legal information from the Federal Ministry for the Environment. This means that a total of 61 applications were funded with around 1.23 million euros in 2018."

"I am delighted that we were once again able to support the great achievements of volunteers not only with words of appreciation and events, but also with substantial financial contributions from the foundation company. With up to 80% funding in individual cases, the associations and charitable institutions can realize projects that would otherwise not be financially viable for them," added the Lord Mayor.

The charts available for download below provide information on the applications of around 527,000 euros approved on August 1 and the distribution of the total funding amount in 2018.