The German auto companies cling to the internal combustion engine. Only hesitantly they present the first purely electrically driven vehicles, such as Daimler yesterday the SUV EQC. The automotive suppliers are also reluctant to invest in electromobility. Bosch has already dismissed the German government's request for the construction of a battery cell factory with thanks. But now Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU) has found an ally in the East: Poland.
On his visit to Warsaw, together with his counterpart Jadwiga Emilewicz, he announced a cooperation in the field of battery cells, which should lead to the establishment of a joint production of energy storage. There had been "intensive talk about concrete applications," said Altmaier.
A production in Lusatia and neighboring western Poland is apparently planned. Emilewicz, the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology in Poland, highlighted after the meeting the great progress made in electromobility in Poland. Among other things, electric buses are manufactured in their country and a whole range of small and medium-sized companies manufacture materials for the production of battery cells.
These companies, she said this afternoon, could become part of a European joint venture that could compete with the big Asian battery producers. As an example, she called the aerospace company Airbus, which had been founded almost half a century ago by, among others, the governments in Germany, France and Great Britain.
EU is working on a "European Battery Alliance"
For Altmaier, the project, which will take shape at the beginning of next year at a German-Polish economic conference, has a whole series of advantages. The Union man is on the one hand under pressure, because the important German auto industry is under pressure, including by electric car manufacturers such as Tesla from the US or Chinese companies. For a long time, the federal government wants to establish the production of electricity storage in Germany, because "a significant part of the added value of electric cars comes from the battery," says Altmaier.
If Poland were to join in, state funds could also flow much more easily, without the EU Commission being able to ban this as illicit subsidies. There they are already forging a European battery alliance. Altmaier wants to know this, of course, under strong German leadership participation - analogous to Airbus.
And then another point of view, which is related to the geographical situation of Poland, comes to mind. The country is bordered by Lusatia, the brown coal region that faces a drastic structural change due to the withdrawal from fossil fuels. Altmaier intends to establish not only scientific research and development in the area of renewable energies and electromobility, but also the production of battery cells.
This would give people a concrete perspective for the time after brown coal mining. To this end, the minister has set up a commission to prepare the structural change and exit. The more concrete forms adopt sustainable, new economic sectors for the East German region, the more it hopes for the willingness of people there to accept the coal exit. A downturn in the region, so the fear in Berlin, could further fuel the emergence of the AfD in the East.