Atom and gas are suddenly “green”

EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has thus won a dubious victory. It satisfies her main sponsor Emmanuel Macron from the nuclear country France, which wants to take over 100 percent of the energy company EdF after high losses and many technical nuclear problems. But environmental groups, experts and many politicians are strictly against this “My Fair Lady” policy: “It’s so green when Brussels blossoms.” Rasmus Andresen, spokesman for the German Greens in the European Parliament, says: “The Gas – and the nuclear lobby won, the climate lost.”

Austria and Luxembourg announce lawsuits, but they will achieve little or nothing. The federal government does not want to take action against the EU decision, but remains of the position that nuclear energy is not sustainable.

Conclusion: There is a great danger that the European “Green Deal” will become a “Greenwasher Deal”.

The load on Pattex with which Boris Johnson is glued to his prime minister’s chair is also large. Whatever happens, he has a message: “I’m staying.” Otherwise Britain will descend into chaos and its Conservative Party will lose the next election. And what happened yesterday at 10 Downing Street, as the English “House of Cards” is called:

Three dozen MPs from his party resigned from government offices. Even the most loyal of his ministers (such as Home Secretary Priti Patel) moved away from him. A top-class delegation asked Johnson to say goodbye in vain, but he doesn’t want to be a “bye-bye-Boris”. In fact, he threw out Minister for Building Michael Gove after the palace revolt. There is a risk of another no-confidence vote by Johnson’s party early next week, until then the prime minister is a “dead man walking”.

Statements and analysis of a possible post-inflation recession are growing in severity. In our cover story, the well-known economist Mohamed El-Erian explains that the turbulence on the stock exchanges and world markets will probably continue. A recession in Europe is practically inevitable, and the probability of an economic crisis has also increased significantly in the USA, according to the Allianz Group’s long-standing investment advisor: “The liquidity risk is increasing.”

As was the case with US government bonds in March 2020, it could then suddenly no longer be easy for buyers and sellers to find each other on a market. And Carsten Klude, head of asset management at the Hanseatic private bank MM Warburg, believes that the profit forecasts of the corporations are far too rosy: “If profits fall, it will be difficult for the markets again.” dropped below $100 a barrel again.

Management by provocation is Herbert Diess’ management technique at Volkswagen. In executive committees, he raises bold theses in the style of an opinion writer, and when someone who has been provoked contradicts them with facts, the discussion ends.

In the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” the VW boss provoked a comparison with the “ancestors”, as he calls his predecessors Ferdinand Piëch (1937-2019) and Martin Winterkorn, 75: “One built a theater, the other the art museum and the Autostadt. During my tenure, we decided to spend two billion euros on a new plant and one billion euros on a new development center.” I don’t just talk, that means I act. I, Herbert, the master builder.

The provo number is his overture for the supervisory board meeting on Friday, in which the inspectors want to find out whether Diess is still the right one with his forced march into electromobility, which leaves some exhausted by the wayside. The many software problems have made the supervisors uneasy, the large-scale Cariad unit is a cluster risk for the group and the career of the CEO. Our report explains that three important topics are being discussed.

• IPO Porsche: After the summer break, the sporty subsidiary is to go public to raise the money for the e-transformation. The VW Group wants to keep at least 75 percent.
• Like Porsche, Audi is also pushing into the Formula 1 racing car circus, which some in the group do not consider to be up-to-date. Audi boss Markus Duesmann raves about the image boost and is primarily talking about a partnership with the Sauber racing team.
• Against the criticism of the Volkswagen plant in the Chinese Uyghur region of Xinjiang – IG Metall had even called for the closure – the group is relying on a personal issue. Kerstin Waltenberg, who was installed as human rights officer, is to report directly to the board.

Diess, who is fighting for his job, will no longer achieve a maxim of theater builder Piëch, who was a VW co-owner: “Full throttle on the way up – that’s my dream.”

And then there is Christian Lindner, Federal Minister of Finance and head of the FDP, who has mastered both the colorful and the less colorful pages of the newspaper these days. His obvious plan to reduce state benefits for the long-term unemployed caused a stir, which was first reported by the “Spiegel”. Funds for integration into work are to be reduced from 4.8 billion to 4.2 billion euros.

Other revelations about the politician can be read in “Bunte”, “Gala” and “Bild”. They offer a wealth of detail about Lindner’s wedding (civil) this Thursday with the journalist Franca Lehfeldt on the island of Sylt, which is known to be easy to reach with the nine-euro ticket.

The mayor dares, there’s a bachelorette party on Friday, on Saturday the church wedding, the chancellor comes and half the cabinet, and at the end everything is reflected with esprit and spirits in the beach bar “Sansibar”. But this evening, too, the guests will have to stick to Schicki-Micki hater Herbert Seckler, who has owned the Scampi tavern for 44 years. His motto: If you put on big pants, you have to go again.
I wish you a cheerful day and, of course, say yes to important decisions.

It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor

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