The mass exodus of companies from Germany has shown the country was now effectively “bankrupt”, the head of an industry organisation has said.
Dirk Jandura, the head of the Federal Association of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA), added that he expected more firms to leave over high costs in 2025.
“The large companies are relocating, the medium-sized companies are suffering or closing down. This is a declaration of bankruptcy for Germany as a business location,” the BGA president told the German-language branch of Reuters on December 26.
He warned that the country’s deindustrialisation was structural in nature and that nothing would change if issues to do with high energy costs were not dealt with.
Until then, manufacturers in the chemicals, metals and mechanical engineering sectors would continue to leave.
“The costs here are simply too high,” Jandura said.
“A third of companies are planning to reduce their investments. That is not a good prospect for future growth.”
That sentiment was echoed by Peter Adrian, the president of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, who warned that the country was no longer competitive on the international stage.
“Companies in this country have had to cope with many new burdens and too much government intervention in recent years,” he said.
“Their confidence in the location is therefore at an all-time low.”
Issues relating to industry and energy costs are high on the agenda heading into Germany’s snap election in February, as are questions surrounding Islamic extremism and mass migration.
The various crises facing the country have so far benefited the political Right. Leading the polls are the allied Christian Democratic Union with around 30 per cent, while the populist Alternative for Germany is in second place with about 20 per cent.
Multiple pollsters have found that the terror attack in Magdeburg on December 20 had not impacted polling in any substantial way, with left-wing parties only losing between 0.5 per cent and 1 per cent since the incident that killed five people.
People who leave Germany permanently become more satisfied with their lives, a long-term study by the German Federal Institute for Population Studies has found. https://t.co/JzeBt80S1b
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) December 20, 2024
