2023-12-28 07:30:32
Torsten Albig, chief lobbyist for the tobacco company Philip Morris, is promoting a switch to e-cigarettes. He likes to change sides himself: he used to be Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein. A conversation about the future of smoking and the limits of lobbying
He doesn’t go to bed in the evening “crying” after ZEIT journalists spend two hours telling him how evil lobbying is. Torsten Albig affirms this at the end of the conversation in his apartment in Kiel. © Henning Kretschmer for DIE ZEIT
A maisonette apartment in Kiel, art by Günter Grass on the wall, signed gifts, people know each other among Schleswig-Holstein Social Democrats. Torsten Albig is standing on the spiral staircase; he was the country’s prime minister until 2017. He has since changed sides: Since September he has been chief lobbyist for the tobacco company Philip Morris. A quick photo before the interview. “Maybe a cigarette to relax?” The reporter offers him a Marlboro. “Stay away from me,” says Albig.
THE TIME: Before our last conversation a few years ago in Kiel, you had just said a sentence that, in the opinion of many, cost you re-election as Prime Minister.
#Torsten #Albig #smoking #stupid