It may be that Sigmar Gabriel is no longer overjoyed with a sentence he said in March 2018: "Do not knock on doors you once sat behind yourself." Gabriel had not been a federal minister there for a few days and spoke with the "Bild" newspaper about his future, which he - in this context the phrase - did not seem to want to spend at that time as a lobbyist.
The fact that Gabriel obviously did not mean this verdict too seriously became clear two months later. As Siemens and Alstom announced that the ex-minister should move to the board of the planned joint Zug-daughter. Gabriel would then represent their interests worldwide, according to the obligatory cooling period of at least one year for members of the government. But then the EU Commission prohibited the merger and thwarted the plans.
But now it is increasingly likely that the longtime SPD leader could soon become one of the most influential German lobbyists. At the beginning of the month, manager magazin (read the article here) reported that Gabriel is in talks as president of the German Automobile Association (VDA). According to "Bild am Sonntag", he is now the favorite to be sent to the post.
Commitment to "impartiality and neutrality"
If so, his sentence of March 2018 caught up with him quickly. After all, where else should the chief lobbyist of the most important German industrial branch tap, if not at the door of the economic minister? A door behind which Gabriel himself sat for more than three years from 2013 to 2017 - and at times, perhaps, opened the car lobby a bit too complacently, as the Federal Court of Justice harshly criticized a year ago.
"The German automotive industry," said the Court of Auditors, had "significantly influenced" the decision of the Federal Government for the purchase premium for e-cars introduced in July 2016 and its design. Responsible for the appointments was Gabriel. However, its then ministry had the obligation "to impartiality and neutrality in the performance of its duties," warned the auditors.
This episode is truly not an isolated case. In fact, Gabriel's relationship to the auto industry has for decades been almost unbiased and neutral-regardless of whether or not he was a minister. Some examples:
- As head of government of the major shareholder Lower Saxony Gabriel qua Office sat from 2000 to 2003 on the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen. Unsavory headlines there were two years later for him, as it became known that he had embarked after leaving the VW control committee in a consulting firm, which in turn received an order for more than 100,000 euros from Volkswagen - where formally everything ran correctly, like Gabriel emphasized at that time.
- Like the Federal Government as a whole, Gabriel, as minister, fought against harsher EU environmental rules. When the EU Commission wanted to tighten the limit values for car emissions in 2014, the Minister of Economic Affairs warned at a VW employee meeting in Wolfsburg that "we are not already entering the next level of regulation". And launched a kind of conspiracy theory: what hides under the cloak of climate protection, so Gabriel at that time, was not infrequently the attempt to put the German car industry in the way stones.
- In November 2017 - Gabriel was now Foreign Minister and the Federal Government only in the executive office - the EU Commission wanted to propose climate protection rules for the automotive industry. Gabriel intervened in the final meters by writing a letter to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and was campaigning to protect the car industry. He said it was "of great concern that we do not stifle the innovation power of the automotive industry by overly-knit EU legislation," wrote Gabriel.
Thus Gabriel angered even his own party member in the cabinet, the then Minister of the Environment Barbara Hendricks: The letter had neither been voted in the government nor correspond to the SPD position, they also do not understand at all, in what capacity Gabriel has even turned.
In this respect, Gabriel's possible future activity as Germany's chief car lobbyist seems quite consistent. Especially as he has many years as chairman of the German social democracy experience with slow decline and threatening structural crises. The question is rather, whether the German car industry in the face of Gabriel's record as SPD leader with him as chief lobbyists do a favor.
Read the current SPIEGEL cover story about the industry crisis: "Is the German car industry still to be saved?"
However, a conviction would have to throw Gabriel overboard if it pulls him to the top of the VDA: His support for a speed limit in Germany - which prevented the car lobby so far successfully. In 2013, Gabriel told the "Rheinische Post": "Tempo 120 on motorways I think makes sense."