Industry heavyweights such as Linde or Biontech are turning their backs on Germany.
Against the threat of de-industrialization, the traffic light government needs more than just perseverance slogans.
A commentary by Georg Anastasiadis.
There will be no deindustrialization in Germany, and no migration of future technologies: With these words, Chancellor Olaf Scholz rebuked his critics in the Bundestag.
That was, as one suspected at the time, more purposeful optimism than a realistic prognosis.
Since then it has been rock solid: Audi announced that it would have electric cars manufactured in the USA in the future, Biontech announced that it would be relocating its research to Great Britain without further ado, BASF cut thousands of jobs in Germany, and the most valuable German company, Linde, returned Germany's financial center back and has not been listed in the Dax since yesterday.
Because the German stock exchange rules artificially capped the weight of the giant Linde in the Dax,
Traffic light government does not even react with words, let alone with deeds
The exodus of German business icons is just the tip of the iceberg.
Smaller, less well-known companies are going quietly – or shutting down altogether.
Germany as a business location is also experiencing its “turning point”.
And unfortunately the traffic light government is not even reacting to this with words, let alone with deeds, unlike with the faltering restoration of military capability.
On the contrary: Politicians and the media prefer to deal with the pranks of climate glue, cheap nuclear power is turned off, the production of domestic fracking gas is demonized and the governing parties SPD and Greens are happily calling for even higher taxes for Habeck's climate plans.
You don't have to accept Professor Hans-Werner Sinn's accusation that Berlin is pursuing an "extremist climate policy" to recognize:
The world will not follow this amateurish example.
BASF then emits its CO2 in China instead of in Germany.
For a long time, cheap Russian gas and the booming Chinese sales market covered up weaknesses in Germany as a business location.
But now record-high taxes, expensive energy, excessive bureaucracy and regulation, hostility to research and technology skepticism, a shortage of skilled workers and the subsidy race - instigated by the USA - to attract green industries are having an impact.
Better answers are needed to this poison cocktail than just perseverance slogans from the chancellor's office.
George Anastasiadis
