Why the Ministry of Economic Affairs is important

So everyone negotiates everything. But nobody wants to have the Federal Ministry of Economics any more. Ludwig Erhard (CDU), the largest economics minister in the Federal Republic, even became chancellor. More recently, Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) wanted to follow suit and saw the house, which he expanded to include the entire energy policy, as a stepping stone into the chancellor’s chair. The influential Otto Graf Lambsdorff once founded the ministry as an FDP hereditary farm. He was followed by countless liberals, first in Bonn and then in Berlin, as Germany’s first commercial agents and regulators. It’s all history.

Quarry for other departments

The proud house on Scharnhorststrasse is apparently only a quarry for other departments. The digital department and parts of the industrial department, keyword Industry 4.0, could be added to a newly created digital ministry. The two huge energy departments are moving to a new climate protection ministry.

The policy department as the actual flagship of the house was visibly atrophied anyway. It has long ceased to be a counterweight to the statists in all other departments. The department did not intervene when the incumbent Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU) drafted his industrial policy ideas and triggered an outcry in industry, including family businesses. The Francophile Saarlander wanted to do a lot of planification and little competition.

It is not the first time that the Ministry of Economic Affairs has found it difficult to assert itself. As Federal Minister of Finance, Helmut Schmidt captured the money and credit department on the grounds that those who were concerned about regulatory policy would not support his monetary policy ambitions.

The next bloodletting took place under short-term finance minister Oskar Lafontaine (SPD). It was also influenced by the French. The Treasury dominates the economy there. During Lafontaine’s time, the policy department and the European department moved to the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Everyone just wants some rest – and the bandages sleep

It is very surprising that, with the exception of Friedrich Merz (CDU), nobody seems to be interested in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Scholz wants to forge a “progress government” with the FDP and the Greens, Laschet a “future coalition”. Apparently progress and future take place without the economy.

The classic tasks of competition, foreign trade or industry are no longer plowed by politics at all. Economic policy is only pursued from a frog’s perspective. The powerful and influential Economics Ministers Erhard, Lambsdorff and Karl Schiller always had a top view of Germany as a location with all its international interdependencies and value chains.

They also had a feel for the interrelationships between labor market, economic and social policy. Erhard wanted “prosperity for everyone”, Schiller told his comrades they should “leave their cups in the cupboard”, and Lambsdorff paper has shaped generations.

Now the ministry faces an inglorious fate. It could be reduced to a pure ministry for the promotion of industry and foreign trade. An advocate for competition and the market economy should apparently not sit at the cabinet table, but at the cat table. According to the job profile, the economics minister is supposed to disturb the cabinet – but everyone just wants peace and quiet.

What a mistake! In times of the decoupling of China and the USA, a world energy crisis and rising inflation, a strong voice for the economy would be more necessary than ever. The business associations are sleeping to themselves. You just want to prevent the worst, but that’s not enough. You must urge politicians not to let the Ministry of Economic Affairs bleed to death.

More: Interview with Otto Graf Lambsdorff: Never ready to be a neoliberal