Carmaker in crisis: Merz warns of further industrial job losses

“Germany must remain an industrial country,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz told a CDU campaign event in Langenhagen near Hanover. His warning came as Volkswagen faces a crisis that he said illustrated the difficult position of Germany’s and Europe’s auto industries.

“We are currently losing industrial jobs on a large scale,” Merz said shortly before local elections in Lower Saxony. He said the trend had to be stopped and welcomed a recent agreement by Volkswagen’s supervisory board. A prolonged dispute over the company’s leadership, potentially leading to an extraordinary general meeting, would have been “anything but helpful,” he said.

“

Germany must remain an industrial country!

Merz stressed Volkswagen’s importance to Lower Saxony, saying no other German state was so strongly shaped by a single large industrial company. The automaker’s fate, he said, could not be treated like that of just any private business because many jobs at suppliers, retailers and other businesses depended on it.

“

We are currently losing industrial jobs on a large scale.

Lower Saxony CDU leader Sebastian Lechner accused the state government of failing to act. He said Volkswagen’s difficulties had been foreseeable two years earlier and that the time should have been used to develop prospects for the state’s plants. Lechner welcomed the agreement but criticized the continuing lack of clarity over several sites, including Hanover and Emden. Decisions on their future are due by June next year.

Volkswagen’s supervisory board approved a broad corporate restructuring that includes further cuts affecting tens of thousands of jobs and a smaller model range. The future of four German plants remains open.

“

Anything but helpful.