The company philosophy hangs at the entrance to the factory building, it’s about sustainability and CO₂ savings – you’d love to go in there as a green person. Despite the background noise of the many machines, it constantly tacks like in a sewing workshop, sometimes it squeaks like a circular saw. Ludwig Hartmann and Katharina Schulze squat down and tiptoe, look around, touch coils and valves, ask questions: delivery bottlenecks, recycling quotas? The state Greens are in retreat, focus on industry. The two-day meeting in Bayreuth should not be as academic, it was said, but more practical with external appointments. Like here at Schlaeger M-Tech, which develops and manufactures special components for industry and cars. A visit to a piano factory and a 3D printing workshop is scheduled for the following day. According to the stated goal, the Greens want to be “partners” with business. And show that too.
“If you want to save energy, you have to have the courage to turn very deep screws,” says Schlaeger Managing Director Anton Fuchs, “an incredible learning curve” was laid there. With sentences like this, there is a lot of nodding in the group of visitors, and Schulze gives a thumbs-up. At a display board on energy efficiency, many green guests pull out their mobile phones to take pictures, wow. It is different with a trainee board in the plant: process mechanic, mechatronics technician, industrial clerk (m/f) is written there – not gendered, without d for various in brackets. Prompt a whisper in the group. So be it, the atmosphere is great.
“Innovation driver industry – with vision into a climate-neutral future” is the motto of the winter retreat, which was postponed due to Corona and has now been made up. For climate neutrality, regional added value and infrastructure, the “course must now be set,” says Schulze. It is about the greatest economic renewal since industrialization, and politics and business have the same goals in mind – their Greens want to be “enablers” for this. Unlike the state government, “unfortunately, the CSU did not understand what is important to the industry,” Schulze criticized right at the start of the exam on Thursday.
It cannot be that one day BMW will stand for “Bremer Motorenwerke”.
As an example, she cites the latest location decisions, in which the chip manufacturer Intel and a battery factory decided to settle elsewhere, “a vote with feet”. Both of them gave the reason that there is not enough electricity from renewable energies in Bavaria. It cannot be that one day BMW will stand for “Bremer Motorenwerke”, adds Hartmann. Head of state chancellery Florian Herrmann (CSU) reacted quickly, saying that the Greens themselves “constantly” take a stand against settlements – “typical double standards”. And Intel was about space requirements, not energy. Schulze says on Friday: “Hit dogs bark.”
The exchange of blows says a lot, for years it went in the opposite direction: Especially in election campaigns, the CSU never misses an opportunity to scold the Greens for being anti-industrial, regulating and slowing down growth, and as a senior teacher at that. One can now see that many Greens are almost thieving for joy that the momentum of the time – the constraints resulting from the Ukraine war – is on their side. Schulze says the Greens have been taking care of the industry for years, and the issue certainly does not belong to the CSU. It was time for this specialist exam.
Sounds kind of like an election campaign. The CSU has long since opened the race for the 2023 state elections, and this has been noticeable for weeks: first with Söder’s reshuffle in the cabinet and party apparatus, now also because he never misses an appointment where he could meet potential voters: folk festivals, Groundbreaking, greetings, all over the country. If you ask around the Greens, you often hear: election campaigns? Chamber! This is probably also due to the fact that the top candidate is completely open: Hartmann? Or Schulze, who at 36 would be too young according to the constitution to be prime minister? Another constitutional change? is there a team Everything should be sorted out in the fall. The election program will also be drawn out, as it is drawn up in an “inviting participation process” with external groups.
Unlike Söder, you don’t have to “panically travel through the country”
In any case, the Greens are doing just fine: The traffic lights in Berlin are giving tailwind even in the crisis, because Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck are publicly attested to be doing a good job. The faction in the state parliament works in a disciplined manner, rivalries that must exist everywhere remain internal. In polls, the Greens are again ahead of the SPD, within reach of the 2018 result (17.6 percent). At the exam, everyone said that there was a lot more to it – there was already a survey potential of 25 percent. However, it is also known that one has to manage to remove the taint as a “threat” from the green desire for change, especially in rural areas. But: no stress, you hear, unlike Söder, you don’t have to “panic through the country”. Hartmann says it like this: “Söder rattles, we work.”
The work in Bayreuth leads to debt papers. The Greens see a need of two billion euros per year for the transformation of Bavarian industry: on the one hand for modern infrastructure in the energy industry, transport and digitization. On the other hand, a state strategy for resource efficiency with grants and loans should help companies directly with the “innovation leap”. There is also a need for action when it comes to skilled workers. Example racquet. Managing Director Fuchs reports that they currently have the lowest applicant quota in the company’s history: Five years ago there were still 90, but now you could count the number of applicants on two hands. And among them there are still many “demotivated young people”, the generation seems “lost” after Corona – lost. Schulze interjects that she wants to “break a lance for the young people, it’s been two crappy years.” There is “not the one solution”, but many building blocks; such as “gender-sensitive careers advice”.
On Friday, Hartmann and Schulze will sit on the podium with Franziska Brantner, State Secretary in Habeck’s Economics and Climate Ministry. Last press conference of the exam, it’s about the 10-hour distance rule for wind turbines, which Söder has stuck to so far. Now at the latest it can be felt that the Greens have long been in campaign mode. “If I were Markus Söder, I would be ashamed that I’m the nation’s brakeman,” said Schulze. Hartmann says: Söder is delaying something that will fall anyway, to the detriment of the country – if Söder cannot find a partner who will support it, or if he no longer governs. “By September 2023 at the latest, 10-H will be history.”