every Friday we discuss potential cover stories in the Handelsblatt. This is usually very structured and efficient – which could be due to the fact that journalists are also happy on Fridays when they are allowed to go to the weekend. This week, however, a colleague raised an issue that we have discussed for a long time: the question of who will really be affected by the impending loss of prosperity in Germany and what answers the state has to it.
Even if Olaf Scholz announced a few days ago with the iconic sentence “You’ll never walk alone” that the state would not let anyone down, there are still some question marks regarding implementation. My colleague Julian Olk therefore demanded in his editorial last week: “Finally say who should be hit and how badly” and presented three options for how the state could proceed.
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Olk’s conclusion: Anyone who wants to relieve the burden should do so in a targeted manner. At times like this, you might have to say self-critically: people like me, who live in a perfectly insulated new apartment with a solar thermal system on the roof and exclusively energy-efficiency-A devices, don’t need this relief as much as others.
As part of a family where the child already recognizes the voice assistant Alexa as the fourth member of the family, our weekend cover story also resonated with me this week. In “Limits of Gigantism”, our US correspondents, in cooperation with the corporate department, have shed light on developments at Amazon since Andy Jassy took over the company from Jeff Bezos as boss a year ago. Their conclusion: “It’s high time to change the product without tearing down the supermarket.”
What else kept us busy this week:
1: Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan this week caused conflict. The Speaker of the US House of Representatives visited the Taiwan Parliament against President Joe Biden’s wishes early Wednesday morning European time and met with President Tsai Ing-wen. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, sharply criticized the visit and launched major military maneuvers off the island, including target practice. In addition, sanctions against Pelosi were announced by China on Friday, as well as the termination of several ongoing talks with the United States. In an episode well worth listening to, my colleague Anis Mičijević discussed what effects the conflict could have on the global economy with our correspondent Dana Heide, who has just returned from China, on the Today Podcast.
2: As of this week, the guesswork about the whereabouts of the SGT-A65 gas turbine has ended. She reappeared in Mülheim an der Ruhr at Siemens Energy – and Chancellor Olaf Scholz right away. We remember: The turbine was transported to Canada for routine maintenance, since then there has been a dispute about its re-importation and only 20 percent of the agreed natural gas volumes flow through Nord Stream 1. Our energy expert Kathrin Witsch was there when Olaf Scholz performed in Mülheim an der Ruhr.
3: Germany is considerably richer than the official statistics show. And that was just one major finding of a new study by Humboldt University, the DIW research institute and the University of Bonn. Among other things, the economists also examined how wealth in Germany is now geographically distributed and what proportion of total wealth is held by the richest one percent.
4: Zalando is changing its strategy. In the meantime, the fashion mail order company was one of the big beneficiaries of the corona pandemic. After a loss in the first quarter and a small profit in the second quarter, Zalando boss Robert Gentz announced in an interview with Anja Müller and Florian Kolf in the Handelsblatt that the company intends to focus more on profitability than growth in the future. The first step: the introduction of a minimum order value.
5: Lufthansa comes to an agreement with the ground staff, but the pilot problem remains. Hardly any topic has been discussed so passionately in recent weeks as the chaos at German airports. When there were also strikes at Lufthansa during the main holiday season, tolerance for many travelers was over. On Thursday evening, the Verdi union announced at least one agreement in the negotiations with the ground staff, promising employees in the low-wage group 20 percent more money. Now the pilots’ association Cockpit is demanding more money. In fact, research by colleagues Lazar Backovic and Jens Koenen shows how massively the salaries differ for Eurowings and Lufthansa pilots, for example.
6: After their election, works councils must not be paid better than before. This judge’s decision is likely to cause some conflicts. In the extended reasoning for the judgment, which has now become known, about the former VW works council chief Bernd Osterloh, the Braunschweig regional court set very narrow limits for the remuneration of works councils. Osterloh should therefore have received just under 50,000 euros instead of 750,000 euros. This is also surprising because in the process in September 2021 four VW managers who were responsible for Osterloh’s salary were acquitted. The reason: the managers had not acted intentionally.
7: Finally, two new ways of farming have been found. After months of searching, it was announced on Friday evening that Ulrike Malmendier and Martin Werding would take over the posts and that they would be appointed as early as next Wednesday. Malmendier is an expert on inflation, Werding on social security systems. Previously, there had been numerous cancellations for the posts.
8th: Up to 70 percent home office for Commerzbank employees. At least that was good news this week from the bank, which is currently cutting 10,000 jobs. A previous quota had set 50 percent mobile working – to the dissatisfaction of the employees. This decision has now been revised. Most German banks have now agreed on a mixture of office work and home office, but do not go as far as Commerzbank.
French fighter jets flying in formation.
9: France has the most powerful army in the EU. In our current series “Defence” we deal with the question of what Germany can learn from other countries in terms of defence. Correspondent Gregor Waschinski reports from France this week: No European country invests more in research and development in the defense sector than France, in 2020 it was 1.3 billion euros. Much of the military innovation comes from the private sector. However, the companies and start-ups are specifically supported by the state – and Macron wants to further increase the funds.
I wish you a wonderful weekend,
Her,
Charlotte Haunhorst
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