Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Germany’s biggest companies campaign against far right parties ahead of the EU elections

Germany's biggest companies said Tuesday they have formed an alliance to campaign against extremism ahead of key EU Parliament elections, when the far right is projected to make strong gains.

Published: 7 May 2024 14:06 CEST
BMW workers
BMW employees doing bodywork on various models at the main production plant. BMW is among Germany's 30 largest companies that warn far right politics threaten their workforce and their business. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sven Hoppe

The alliance of 30 companies includes blue-chip groups like BMW, BASF and Deutsche Bank, a well as family-owned businesses and start-ups.

“Exclusion, extremism and populism pose threats to Germany as a business location and to our prosperity,” said the alliance in a statement.

“In their first joint campaign, the companies are calling on their combined 1.7 million employees to take part in the upcoming European elections and engaging in numerous activities to highlight the importance of European unity for prosperity, growth and jobs,” it added.

The unusual action by the industrial giants came as latest opinion polls show the far-right AfD obtaining about 15 percent of the EU vote next month in Germany, tied in second place with the Greens after the conservative CDU-CSU alliance.

A series of recent scandals, including the arrest of a researcher working for an AfD MEP, have sent the party’s popularity sliding since the turn of the year, even though it remains just ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.

Already struggling with severe shortages in skilled workers, many German enterprises fear gains by the far right could further erode the attractiveness of Europe’s biggest economy to migrant labour.

READ ALSO: INTERVIEW – Why racism is prompting a skilled worker exodus from eastern Germany

The alliance estimates that fast-ageing Germany currently already has 1.73 million unfilled positions, while an additional 200,000 to 400,000 workers would be necessary annually in coming years.

bmw worker

, chief executive of the Dussmann Group, noted that 68,000 people from over 100 nations work in the family business.

“For many of them, their work with us, for example in cleaning buildings or geriatric care, is their entry into the primary labour market and therefore the key to successful integration. Hate and exclusion have no place here,” he said.

Siemens Energy chief executive Christian Bruch warned that “isolationism, extremism, and xenophobia are poison for German exports and jobs here in Germany – we must therefore not give space to the fearmongers and fall for their supposedly simple solutions”.

The alliance said it is planning a social media campaign to underline the call against extremism and urged other companies to join its initiative.

READ ALSO: A fight for the youth vote – Are German politicians social media savvy enough?

It added that the campaign will continue after the EU elections, with three eastern German states to vote for regional parliaments in September.

In all three — Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony — the far-right AfD party is leading surveys.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

POLITICS

‘Dexit’ would cost Germany ‘€690 billion and millions of jobs’

According to the German Economic Institute (IW), Germany's exit from the EU – the so-called Dexit – would cost millions of jobs and significantly reduce the country's prosperity.

Published: 19 May 2024 18:04 CEST
'Dexit' would cost Germany '€690 billion and millions of jobs'

In a study presented by the Cologne-based institute on Sunday, the authors showed that a Dexit would cause real GDP to drop by 5.6 percent after just five years. This means that Germany would lose 690 billion euros in value creation during this time.

In addition, Germany as an export nation is dependent on trade with other countries, especially with other EU countries, warned the authors. Companies and consumers in Germany would therefore feel the consequences “clearly” and around 2.5 million jobs would be lost.

The study is based on the consequences of Britain’s exit from the EU, such as the loss of trade agreements and European workers.

Taken together, the losses in economic output in Germany in the event of a Dexit would be similar to those seen during Covid-19 and the energy cost crisis in the period from 2020 to 2023, the authors warned.

Brexit is therefore “not an undertaking worth imitating,” warned IW managing director Hubertus Bardt. Rather, Brexit is a “warning for other member states not to carelessly abandon economic integration.”

Leader of the far-right AfD party Alice Weidel described Great Britain’s exit from the European Union at the beginning of the year as a “model for Germany.”

In an interview published in the Financial Times, Weidel outlined her party’s approach in the event her party came to power: First, the AfD would try to resolve its “democratic deficit” by reforming the EU. If this was not successful, a referendum would be called on whether Germany should remain in the EU.

SHOW COMMENTS