Lies: Volkswagen Crisis Exposes Strain on German Industry
Lower Saxony Minister-President Olaf Lies told POLITICO the country's industrial core must be saved and the EU supply chain law suspended. He also warned the Berlin coalition against focusing on poll numbers.
Olaf Lies, Minister-President of the German state of Lower Saxony and a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), has called for action to save the country's industrial base. He spoke in Hanover with journalist Gordon Repinski for POLITICO's talk series "Let's find common ground". The 50,000 jobs at risk at carmaker Volkswagen have become a symbol of a deep economic crisis in Lower Saxony and across Germany.
Saving the industrial core
Lies argues that Germany's industrial core must be rescued before its international competitiveness is lost for good. He says the European supply chain law, which places obligations on companies regarding their suppliers, must now be suspended without delay.
He also warns the governing coalition in Berlin against looking only at poll numbers during the crisis. In his view, the constant quarrelling over short-term successes wears down trust in the democratic centre.
Chinese competition and political climate
Pressure is also growing from China's dominant position in the electric car market. That forces Europe to rethink its strategy and go beyond punitive tariffs alone.
The conversation also touched on how state parliaments treat politicians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, with Ulrich Siegmund given as an example. The programme description presents this as a sign of how fragile democratic normality in the state parliaments has become.
