The singer-songwriter Gunter Gabriel is not known as an economic pioneer. But his song “Nothing going on without moss” is timelessly topical. Even the green do-gooders should see that. They think that the world should heal thanks to the German climate system. But it is not that simple.
Anyone who puts climate protection above all else accepts the decline of Germany as a business location with the resulting dos and don’ts policy. But if companies migrate, if investments are made abroad and no longer in Germany, then the state will lack tax revenue. But only a financially strong state can advance the necessary transformation of the economy.
A manager and his reckoning with the “ideological world saviors”
Gunther Kegel, successful manager and president of the electrical engineering association ZVEI, has now warned in the “Welt” of dangerous de-industrialization. His prognosis is bleak: “Hardly any new factories will be built, not enough is being invested in existing ones, and with the sharp rise in energy prices caused by the war, many companies from the energy-intensive sectors are now threatened with a quick departure.”
When large corporations partially relocate their production abroad, this inevitably affects medium-sized suppliers and service providers as well. The ZVEI President therefore fears the loss of particularly well-paid jobs that require insurance and thus a “massive loss of prosperity”.
Without explicitly naming the Greens, Kegel speaks of “forces that are even happy about this and want to destroy individual branches of industry in order to create something new and want to accelerate the undoubtedly necessary transformation towards climate neutrality in a way that is almost impossible to achieve. These are ideological world saviors who want to show and demonstrate to the whole world what industry should look like in the future.”
Volkswagen, BASF, Bayer: The signs of creeping deindustrialization are unmistakable
The manager’s reproach to politics: it seems to be more about preventing than doing. “You can talk so much about the new pace in Germany. Practically none of this has arrived in practice. We still regulate ourselves to death.”
In addition to less regulation and bureaucracy, Kegel advocates faster planning and approval processes and, above all, “a competitive electricity price for everyone”. It helps industry with decarbonization, but also with achieving climate goals in the private sector. Kegel’s thesis: “If electricity is cheap enough, people will build one voluntarily heat pump on, even without a gas heating ban. And then they buy electric cars instead of combustion engines.”
The picture that the association president paints of Germany as a location is gloomy, but not unrealistic. Because the signs of creeping deindustrialization are unmistakable.
- He’s building for two billion dollars Volkswagen Group electric vehicle manufacturing facility in the United States.
- The chemical company BASF relocates parts of its production abroad.
- Bayer expands its pharmaceutical research – in the USA.
- The vaccine pioneer Biontech, one of the great success stories of recent years, has chosen Great Britain as the location for expanding cancer research. And and and …
Nothing going on without moss – not even when making the world a better place
The start-up companies, the large corporations of tomorrow, are not looking too good for us either. There are around 1400 “Unicorns” worldwide; these are young companies valued at more than a billion dollars. According to the management consultancy Bain & Company, just 34 of these are in Germany, but 711 in the USA.
Gunter Kegel is not the first and not the only business representative who is concerned about the German economy. Hearing similar complaints and warnings from the other major business organizations. The positive thing about it: In the economy, the deindustrialization of the country is considered a great danger, but not yet inevitable.
However, the signs point to a storm. Politicians should not dismiss them as the whining of lobbyists. And above all the green do-gooders – with and without party membership – should be aware that Germany alone cannot save the global climate, but can very well weaken its economic basis on its own. Because: nothing happens without moss – not even when making the world a better place.
