In the dispute over the future of Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess, a decision is getting closer. According to information from the FAZ, the presidium of the supervisory board will meet tomorrow, Tuesday, to discuss whether and, if so, under what conditions further cooperation with the manager is possible. Time is of the essence for VW, because on December 9th the Supervisory Board wants to decide on investments in the billions and the occupancy of the factories for the next few years. That is not possible without having clarified the management issue in the group by then.

The relationship of trust between Diess and the trade unionists on the supervisory board has been disrupted after the VW boss called for "much more speed" for the core brand in the transformation in internal meetings and put up to 30,000 jobs to the test. Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) was also angry.

Recently, however, more compromise-ready tones could be heard.

The demand “This must go” does not exist, it was said from the union camp, especially after some questions about the future occupancy of the Wolfsburg main plant seemed to be clarified.

Nevertheless, Diess’s position is not yet secured.

The trade unions and the state of Lower Saxony, as co-owners of VW, are concerned that the CEO will continue to cause unrest with his leadership style, which is sometimes perceived as provocative, and that at a time when Prime Minister Weil is heading for a state election.

The works council chairwoman Daniela Cavallo will also have to face a vote by the workforce in the works council election next year.

Preliminary decision this week

Most recently, the internal mediation committee had discussed the Personnel Diess several times without the concrete results becoming known. According to information from the FAZ, there was another meeting of the mediation committee on Friday. With the Presidium, a broader body is now involved, whose recommendations are generally followed by the Supervisory Board as a whole. It remains to be seen whether there will be a decision at the meeting on Tuesday afternoon. Internally it is said that the meeting should not be given too much importance as a number of other meetings are scheduled. In general, however, it is expected that VW will make a preliminary decision on the future of Diess this week.

The presidium of the supervisory board includes the chairman of the supervisory board, Hans Dieter Pötsch and his deputy, the head of IG Metall, Jörg Hofmann, the works council chairwoman Cavallo and the representatives of the shareholder families, Hans Michel Piëch and Wolfgang Porsche, as well as Weil as a representative of the co-owner of Lower Saxony.

As the FAZ reported on the weekend, a solution recently emerged in which VW brand boss Ralf Brandstätter could emerge as the big winner from this new round of the Wolfsburg power struggle. According to this, Brandstätter, who is popular among employee representatives, will soon become a member of the Group's executive board. In addition, according to supervisory board circles, consideration is being given to giving him responsibility for the volume group of the group - i.e. responsibility for the volume brands VW, Skoda and Seat. Until now, Diess was responsible for this on the group's board of directors.

Other questions have also been clarified or are about to be clarified, such as the future occupancy of the Wolfsburg main plant.

A separate factory is to be built there for the new Trinity electric model, which will be the first partially autonomous electric model to roll off the production line from 2026.

Before that, a pre-assembly of the ID.3 compact car is likely to overflow to Wolfsburg and improve capacity utilization there if the capacity limit is reached at the previous production site in Zwickau.

This would meet an important requirement of Cavallo.

Whether that would be enough to smooth things over in the dispute over Diess was still open on Monday afternoon.