Berlin's finance senator Stefan Evers (CDU) has been appointed to temporarily lead the city's cultural administration, marking the third change in leadership within a year. This follows the resignation of Joe Chialo in May 2025 and the departure of his successor Sarah Wedl-Wilson on the previous Friday, after months of controversy over the approval of funding grants. Evers will hold both finance and culture portfolios until the Berlin state election on September 20, 2025. The decision was made by CDU district chairpersons after initial talks with former justice senator Thomas Heilmann fell through.
The appointment has sparked criticism, notably from Oliver Reese, director of the Berliner Ensemble, who called it a "thunderbolt" and likened Evers to "Faust and Mephisto in one person"—a fiscal hawk now forced to defend arts funding. The move matters because it highlights the ongoing instability in Berlin's cultural governance and the tension between budget discipline and cultural investment. Evers must immediately address the fallout from a state audit that deemed funding for 13 antisemitism prevention projects (totaling €2.6 million) "evidently unlawful," a crisis that triggered Wedl-Wilson's resignation.