A consortium of German manufacturing SMEs has mobilized in attempt to prod the nation‘s policymakers to do a major course correction. The Initiative Zukunft Wirtschaft Deutschland e.V. (Initiative for the Future Economy of Germany), was formed in 2023 and is led by Andrea Thoma-Böck, its founder and president. IZW is a nonpartisan nationwide foundation calling for improvements to the country’s economic policies, focused especially on the needs of small to medium-sized enterprises and family-owned businesses.
Thoma-Böck is related to Thoma Metallveredelung GmbH, which uses 130 people in Heimimetingen, placing it on the first line of the demanding situations of SMEs. The corporate specializes in galvanic steel coatings and is a pioneer of ecological galvanization technology.
SMEs like yours form the backbone of the trade base of Germany. While Michael von Liechtenstein, founder and president of Geopolitical Intelligence Services AG, recently said in his own interview with Thoma-Böck for the European Foundation of the European Center of the Economy, “Intermediary Corporations in Germany give a contribution of more than 60% of the highest general price and supply 55% of jobs, which makes them an important motor force of innovation and productivity. ” The incessant torrent of gloomy economic news, which is making the global festival spread more and more, is putting those corporations under increasing pressure.
Deindustrialization in Germany, which I pointed out a year ago, even reaches the biggest players and hastened while the economy continues to fight. Now it contracts in 2025 for the third consecutive year. These difficulties have contributed to the recent cave of the ruling coalition, with new elections established for next month. The decrease in industry has stood out in recent months by reducing 11,000 tasks through the largest Thyssenkrupp aciérique and through the Volkswagen announcement of 35,000 task cuts in 2030 in the middle of an investigation into “alternative options” for their Factories in Dresden and Osnabrück.
For Thoma-Böck, that’s enough. “The existing economic crisis has gone from the German industry to almost all living spaces in Germany,” he told me by email. “For industry and craft companies, these are basically the prices of high prices, the availability of raw materials, the lack of professional workers, the superior bureaucracy and the microgestion of the German and European regulations of the government that suffocate To companies. Normal business activity is no longer possible. »
One of its greatest frustrations is the obvious disability of the country’s leaders to the correct friendly costs after years of mediocre economic results. “Political convictions are placed above the facts and above the genuine,” he explained. “The genuine consequences of political decisions are in large part ignored and, as far as possible, only the knowledge that can still meet one’s expectations can still be taken into account. “
She thinks that one of the main participants in the challenge is the lack of real global crime among the country’s ruling class. “Almost none of the top politicians and ministers have ever worked in a personal company under market conditions,” he said. “Some don’t even have vocational training. He now highlights that for years, political positions were filled almost exclusively through party members, regardless of their professional qualifications. How can it be that a minister of the economy has almost no economic delight or knowledge?Or that a Foreign Minister has no diplomatic context?The consequences are obvious and plunged Germany into a deep structural crisis. »»
Another difficulty is the complication of the country’s two teachers, with the National and the EU contributing to the problems.
Andrea Thoma-Böck, founder and president of Zukunft Wirtschaft Deutschland E. V.
“European law has precedence on national law,” said Thoma-Böck. “Legislative projects in European Point are introduced through the Commission. For example, the green agreement, which has been announced unilaterally through the president of the European Commission, is a recreation courtyard for positions based on ideology that simply cannot be maintained if they contrasted with troutharray . . . but, of course, There, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, There, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, they are also misdeeds of purely German origin. The energy transition is the most productive example of the position where all neighboring countries, Europe and the global as one are a single smile or now they are blatantly opposed to us. »
When it comes to achievable and practical solutions, Thoma-Böck acknowledges that the list is long. “This much can be said,” she offered. “Tinkering with symptoms and escaping into unrelated battlefields must urgently give way to a targeted, competency-, knowledge- and fact-based sustainable policy. But the possibility of implementing technical innovations across the board will also depend on the availability of skilled workers. This in turn depends on demographics. At the same time, their additional training leads to shortages in other areas. However, there are some fundamental aspects where something has to change so that the situation as a whole can improve.”
Your priority list of the following points:
Thoma-Böck remains adamant that the replacement will have to come regardless. “The economy is not a goal in itself, but without a proper economic base, you can’t go back to being at all,” he said. “Doing the same thing and back and expecting new effects every time is the definition of madness. Replacement requires the voices of entrepreneurs, who have been too quiet for too long. The lack of courage to show the limits is partly to blame for this situation. They tell us a lesson. Therefore, expressing oneself and taking the stand is the table of time in the future. »»
This article has changed to its non -partisan content.
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