Wolfgang Fritsch-Albert, CEO of Westfalen AG, a leading German producer of industrial gasses, told today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “We no longer can find any understanding of the Mittelstand in Berlin…. And that, although it is our [Mittelstand] companies that present Germany’s structural advantage, which are good and reliable suppliers to the big companies.”
Frisch-Albert explained that Germany’s Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck “is the worst Economy Minister we have ever had…. Because he does not know the composition of the economy, not seeing the Mittelstand in Germany.” When it comes to economic policy, Germany looks like a “banana republic,” the CEO charged, providing more evidence that the Mittelstand is getting fed up with the government.
Habeck’s policies are likewise creating frictions inside the government: In an interview with Cologne’s daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (Free Democrat) remarked: “For as long as it is not clear that energy is available and affordable, we should end the dreams about an exit from coal power by 2030.” The exit from coal by 2038 was fixed by law under the previous German government in 2020, but the current government has declared its intent to exit even earlier than that, preferably by 2030—being a major concession to the Greens.
