The recent success in the European elections of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came in second place behind the conservative CDU/CSU and ahead of the Social Democrats, has caused nervousness to spread among leading businessmen. of the country, who warn that the party’s objectives could endanger Germany as a place of business. Now, billionaire Reinhold Würth, known by the nickname screw kinghas said loud and clear what many other businessmen only dare to say behind closed doors: if the AfD continues to gain power, investments in the country will have to be rethought.
In Künzelsau, a small town in the state of Baden-Württemberg where the Würth Group is based, the AfD achieved 20.6% of the vote. “If this trend continues now, then we have to be careful as entrepreneurs about where and how we invest,” explained the legendary businessman on German public radio. Deutschlandfunk. “Now, of course, we will take our time to analyze and consider whether we will make further investments on a larger scale here in Germany or whether we will move somewhere else,” explained the 89-year-old billionaire and chairman of the company’s supervisory board, who It has more than 27,000 employees in the country, about the possibility of taking its business elsewhere.
The businessman justified the fact of questioning future investments in Germany, among other things, due to the ideas of AfD politicians of wanting to deport people with a migratory history, even if they have German citizenship, the so-called “remigration” coined by the German far right. AfD’s plans to expel migrants from the country if it comes to power came to light at the beginning of the year in a journalistic investigation by the portal Correctiv and unleashed a wave of rejection in the country.
Würth, whose company is a world leader in the development, production and sale of assembly and fixing materials, estimates that around 30% of its workforce originally comes from abroad, a figure very similar to that of many other companies in the country. “We would have huge problems if we didn’t have our employees who are foreigners,” he said. If they disappeared, it would be a “total disaster,” he added of the Würth Group, which currently employs more than 87,000 people in more than 400 companies with more than 2,700 branches in 80 countries around the world and which generated sales of 20.4 billion euros in fiscal year 2023.
Many entrepreneurs have long realized that diversity is not only a social value, but also an economic advantage. Ultimately, the shortage of skilled labor can only be resolved through a targeted immigration policy. According to the Labor Market and Occupation Research Institute, the country needs 400,000 qualified workers from abroad every year. In this context, Mercedes recalled that without foreigners not a single car would leave its factories this year. “We have a labor shortage that only foreigners can cover,” the CEO of the steel giant Thyssenkrupp, Miguel Ángel López Borrego, recently told EL PAÍS.
Before the election, Würth — who took over his father’s company at age 14 and is now one of the richest Germans — had advised his employees in Germany not to vote for the AfD. In a five-page letter, the businessman warned, among other things, those who wanted to vote for the AfD as a sign of protest that they should “make a fuss just for the sake of it and vote for the AfD out of displeasure with the coalition government – made up of social democrats, liberals and greens—is something too simple” and is not a sufficient reason to vote for that party. Meanwhile, the country’s main businessmen created an alliance to warn against the growth of extremist and racist formations that damage the economy, growth and prosperity of Germany, although in their case they avoided making an explicit mention of the party.
In addition to anti-immigration measures, AfD ask in your program “Germany’s withdrawal from the EU or a democratic dissolution of the EU and the reestablishment of a European Economic Community.” Likewise, he wants to reverse the eurozone, which he calls a “fundamentally flawed construction,” to return to national currencies and calls for a referendum on the end of the euro.
Risk to the economy
With this program, 77% of the nearly 900 businessmen surveyed by the German economics institute IW stated that they see AfD as a risk for the country’s economy. Your concerns are not unfounded. “The economic damage of a German exit from the EU would be enormous: €690 billion in just five years,” the IW wrote. Furthermore, according to the survey, around 75% are also concerned about a constructive political culture as they believe that the debates could become even more brutal with the participation of the AfD. Alongside this, 69% fear that the party could harm Germany as a place of business and around 63% agree with the statement that the AfD could worsen labor cohesion.
Business owners’ fears are not new. Economic experts have long warned that an isolationist policy, like that of the AfD, in an exporting nation like Germany that relies heavily on trade with other countries, especially within the EU, not only harms the economy, but It also endangers social cohesion and opens a gap in society. They run the risk of the region controlled by this party being left behind, as companies will hesitate before setting up shop there, which means loss of jobs and tax revenue.
After the European elections, concern now revolves around the regional elections in September in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony. According to all the polls, AfD will be the first political force in those three federal states in eastern Germany, with an estimate of 25% of the votes, 30% and 31.3%, respectively. Given this panorama, some businessmen predict a negative effect on investments and a withdrawal of companies. The Prime Minister of Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, sees it the same way, who lamented the “enormous uncertainty” for the economy caused by the rise of the AfD. The social democratic politician said in Deutschlandfunk that he is concerned that businessmen say that they no longer want to invest in Germany in view of the result of the far-right party.
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