We meet in Heide, a place that Sylt tourists know from driving past.

Northvolt wants to build a battery factory here and create 3,000 jobs.

Is this the beginning of industrialization in Schleswig-Holstein?

Susanne Preuss

Business correspondent in Hamburg.

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Matthias Wysuwa

Political correspondent for northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.

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That is at least a great opportunity in a former structurally weak area.

We have an abundance of regenerative energy, now it would be time to also become an energy application country: the manufacturing industry must be given more weight.

Northvolt is a start.

Do you even have enough workers?

That's the nice thing about Northvolt founder Peter Carlsson, that he not only traveled around Silicon Valley, but also built a gigafactory in the middle of nowhere in Sweden.

He knows exactly what he's getting himself into in a region like this.

We will have to make sure that we react appropriately to such a 4 billion investment.

We need to bring in people we don't have at the moment.

If necessary, we will upgrade the infrastructure so that people from Hamburg also want to work here.

And it's also about education.

Then you would have to start very quickly to create appropriate training courses.

Exactly, everything that has to do with battery technology, system technology, high-voltage technology will be in demand in the future.

I'm not only Economics Minister, but also Labor Minister and responsible for vocational training - that gives the whole thing another kick.

We certainly need a year in advance to start the relevant training courses, you can't conjure people who teach something like that out of a hat.

But it takes three years for the factory to be completed, and then we are still doing something about the shortage of skilled workers before production begins.

So far there has only been the announcement from Northvolt.

What are the hurdles before the project is implemented?

There are no show stoppers.

Of course there are still a lot of hurdles.

Above all, the infrastructural connection.

Secondly, the question arises for the investor how much electricity he gets at what price.

Another issue is how much water is needed for cooling during production.

But Northvolt scanned about 140 locations and then concentrated more and more, then Carlssen got on the stage with the Prime Minister and said that he wanted to invest here - that's a big signal.

What about financial support?

Federal Minister of Economics Habeck is certainly there, even if he has not yet given any specific figures.

We from the state are adding around 50 million euros.

Finance Minister Monika Heinold has already planned the amount in the budget for the next few years.

That's not really much...?

no

I am a liberal minister and not a promotions minister.

I am in favor of creating framework conditions so that a company can do business.

I'm not for mentored entrepreneurship, which needs start-up support in the beginning and then subsidies galore.

We don't need anything like that.

We need an active entrepreneur who can also represent what he does economically.

Start-up financing is fair, also in terms of site conditions.

But not more.

The European IPCEI programs, which also exist for battery factories, are lavish.

Isn't there a risk that the investor will simply go to a neighboring country?

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, there might be more workers, especially since there are so many problem cases there: MV shipyards, Caterpillar, Nordex...