This year there was no good news from Europe for the US data group Facebook. In June the EU Commission announced that it would initiate an investigation into Mark Zuckerberg’s company on suspicion of competition violations. And Brussels is currently working on tougher regulation.
It can be seen as a kind of counterattack, perhaps also as a test in dollar currency, of what Facebook is now planning: to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union within the next five years. The managers Nick Clegg and Javier Olivan announced this in a blog post this morning. The staff is supposed to make Zuckerberg’s vision a reality, a 3-D accessible Internet, a virtual universe that he himself calls “Metaverse”. We are looking for a highly specialized team of engineers with a finger-thick compliment: “This investment is a vote of confidence in the strength of the European tech industry and the potential of European tech talents.”
And of course, Facebook is also happy to work with EU governments. Somehow a movie quote from “The Godfather” comes to mind: “I’m making him an offer he can’t refuse.”
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After the SPD and the Greens, the FDP leadership will also give its place today for negotiations on a traffic light coalition. You have to see the whole thing as an “AG Rebuilding”, as a temporary alliance for the modernization of the country that was sleepy by the “Groko”. A climate ministry is part of the new course. And the passage in the exploratory final paper on future investments “within the framework of the debt brake” suggests that the necessary reform money will come from all sorts of sideline pots, from KfW to investment funds.
Malicious people call it “shadow households”. An economist like Ifo boss Clemens Fuest criticizes the approximate in the Handelsblatt: “These decisions are incompatible with sustainable financial policy. The pension reform is simply postponed. “
More concrete is the SPD idea to make Rolf Mützenich President of the Bundestag – and to assign the vacant parliamentary group chairmanship to Lars Klingbeil, the General Secretary. Anyone looking for a woman with so much staff banter may soon find her in the role of Federal President, even if she does not come from the SPD.
The Junge Union’s Germany Day continues to act as a big show for potential new CDU leaders. Neither the compulsory exercises nor the artistic impression were thrilling.
- Economic expert Friedrich Merz called the CDU a “reorganization case at risk of insolvency”, but at 66 soon it should not stand for a generation change.
- Jens Spahn had already switched to party convention mode: “We wipe our mouths, we get up again.” As Minister of Health, however, he was responsible for a lot of breakdowns.
- Medium-sized politician Carsten Linnemann appeared energetic and dynamic, but there is still a lack of stature.
- Norbert Röttgen didn’t speak, he just waved.
- Finally, parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus is currently still working to full capacity as a party therapist. “We as a Union must never again be dependent on one face,” he says.
CSU boss Markus Söder, the Quengler from Franconia, had stayed at home – for whatever reason. In the carnival of the big animals of the Union, of all people, one person who has the future behind made a good figure: still party leader Armin Laschet. He can comfort himself with a quote from the recently deceased TV legend Gerd Ruge: “Luck is a bit of the art of not having bad luck.”
Verena Hubertz: “My path has been very unusual”
In the new Bundestag there are only 51 entrepreneurs out of 735 MPs. One who regrets such minority life is Rainer Kirchdörfer, director of the Family Business Foundation. Those who are familiar with the structures of medium-sized and large family businesses are “the absolute exception” in parliament, he says. That is a disadvantage in times of great challenges.
One who has made it is Verena Hubertz, 33, founder of “Kitchen Stories” and an SPD politician. “Don’t complain, join in” is their motto. She wants to work for better framework conditions and more capital for start-ups, for example with a future fund 2.0. Hubertz says: “It cannot be that a company like Biontech from Mainz finances its growth with money from the sovereign wealth fund in Singapore. Why do we not have a German state fund? “
The remainder of entrepreneurial activities that are no longer needed at Siemens is called Portfolio Companies (POC). That sounds a lot more elegant than “special sale”. The latest addition is the business with large drives, known as “Large Drive Applications (LDA)”, as my colleague Axel Höpner reports. They are being prepared for outsourcing, which sometimes causes unrest in the group.
The POC category also includes baggage and sorting systems, where partial sales are pending. The letter and parcel sorting machines are expected to generate half a billion euros, and the road traffic control subsidiary Yunex could deliver even more. Siemens could hang a framed picture at the entrance with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “When I was young I believed that money was the most important thing in life, now that I’m old I know that it is the most important thing.”
In the week of the book fair, the shareholders of a company that, with sales of more than half a billion euros, is one of the largest in the industry in Germany: the Munich publishing group Beck. My colleague Claudia Panster and I experienced a special leadership duo in a thoroughly academic environment.
Hans Dieter Beck, 89, accounts for 90 percent of sales with legal works, his nephew Jonathan, 44, with history and non-fiction books, for 90 percent of the charisma. The current shortage of paper means that people at Christmas cannot be sure that they will get every book at short notice, both warn. Patriarch Beck emphasizes the independence of the family company: “If a publisher gets too big, the soul is lost.” And his 55-year-old partner says: “Our most important innovations are to put a new program off the ground every six months.” In this case, paper is impatient.
How can our economy become more sustainable? From October 29th we will dedicate a week to this topic in the Handelsblatt – with you. At our kick-off event, we ask experts, entrepreneurs and scientists 50 questions from our readers. What would you like to know about climate change in industry, transport, energy or finance? Send us your questions.
And then there is the best-selling Spanish thriller author Carmen Mola, which turned out to be a pseudonym for three male screenwriters between 40 and 50 years of age at an award ceremony. In the presence of the Spanish king, the trio pocketed the Planeta Prize, endowed with one million euros. It is said that one did not want to hide behind a woman, but behind a name. But somehow it was attractive to literary transgender people that the works of the alleged author revolve around the detective Elena Blanco, who loves grappa and karaoke, “also cars and sex in SUVs,” as her publisher puts it. The fact that there are also three men behind the successful Italian author Elena Ferrante can – according to all we know – be ruled out.
I wish you an entertaining start to the week.
I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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