Ms. Baerbock, will there still be industry in Germany in 2050?

Patrick Bernau

Responsible editor for economics and "Money & More" of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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Ralph Bollmann

Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of economics and “Money & More” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.

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Sure, of course.

A state-of-the-art industry: climate-neutral, digitized and with leap innovations that we don't even know today.

Is there still an auto industry then?

Naturally.

In 30 years we will still be driving cars - but differently.

Quieter, cleaner, probably largely automated and therefore more efficient.

In order for these cars to continue to be produced in Germany in the future, we have to set the course today.

You need fewer employees to build electric cars.

What does that mean for the jobs?

The greatest job danger is not to drive change from scratch.

The week before last I was at Daimler.

According to its own information, the group has a modernized, largely climate-neutral plant with a high degree of digitalization in Sindelfingen.

The management and works council ensured that the staff was qualified and that employment was retained.

This is how the conversion of Germany's car location can work.

But what if the suppliers then run out of business?

The conversion does not take place separately from the suppliers.

They develop in parallel.

Planning security is required, especially for medium-sized companies.

You have to know where the journey is going, through a forward-looking economic and climate policy.

This is our invitation to German industry.

Industry experts estimate that by saying goodbye to the combustion engine, more than 200,000 jobs will be lost.

What can politics do there?

First of all, many of these jobs are changing.

That doesn't mean they'll all go away.

In addition, many new ones are created.

I see it as our obligation to support companies and their employees in this climate-neutral restructuring of the economy.

This is the best chance to keep jobs in Germany and to create new ones.

Where jobs are fundamentally changed or lost, the state can help with a right to further training or a new qualification short-time work allowance.

But a company that produces spark plugs, for example, won't even exist afterwards?

The history of German industry is a history of partly revolutionary technological change and the resulting upheavals in companies as well.

For example ZF Friedrichshafen: from a gear factory to a specialist in transmissions and now to an electronics and software provider.

I want to secure the current upheaval and make it a new beginning.

In order to give those affected the certainty that investments in the future will also be economically successful, we are setting up regional transformation funds for small and medium-sized companies.

How can Germany compete with China?

The race between industrial locations is decided by which region is the first to be climate-neutral. That is why we must make Europe the first climate-neutral internal market in the world. We can do it. In the past, engineers and developers from Germany and Europe have often enough invented the standards for world markets - be it with the catalytic converter in cars, with CFC-free refrigerators or with the GSM standard in mobile communications. At the moment we are letting China take this competitive advantage away from us. Therefore, in addition to a strong European climate policy, a common European foreign trade policy is needed.