The automotive industry is one of the most important branches of the German economy.
Image: dpa
Growth isn’t everything, says the new economics minister. Other countries are also trying to measure prosperity more broadly. But that is easier said than done.
fhe circle is closing for Robert Habeck this Wednesday. It’s been two weeks since the Economics and Climate Protection Minister sat in front of the blue wall at the federal press conference in Berlin. At that time, the Green politician presented his inventory of German climate protection. The short version: far too little, far too late. Habeck has talked a lot since then. In the Bundestag, with Hamburg’s mayor, with Airbus and BMW, with Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU). The latter wants to keep wind turbines as far away from its citizens as possible. Habeck wants to bring them closer to you. He calls for an “ecological patriotism”. And because nothing is valid in Germany that is not also written down, the new orientation should also be reflected in the work that Habeck will present on Wednesday: in the annual economic report of the federal government.
In recent years, these appointments have mainly been about one number: the forecast of how gross domestic product, or GDP for short, will probably develop. It’s different this year, and that’s not just due to the fact that in times of the pandemic such predictions are outdated even more quickly than in previous years. The Greens have long been strangers to the concept of basing the country’s well-being primarily on the value of the goods and services produced domestically. In the coalition agreement, they therefore negotiated the wording to “integrate reporting on prosperity into the annual economic report, which not only covers economic, but also ecological, social and societal dimensions of prosperity”. Green should surround the GDP.
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