Bavarian chemical triangle: Söder and Aiwanger warn of “disaster” – Bavaria

Just how closely intertwined the companies are in the Gendorf Chemical Park in Burgkirchen, Upper Bavaria, can be seen from the pipelines. Countless of them stretch high above the ground for miles across the 190 hectare site. There are 30 companies here, including eight large chemical producers. One of them produces fluoropolymers that are not only used by other companies here in the chemical park, but also by industry throughout Europe.

Dyneon serves more than 40 percent of the European market with some products, and for individual substances it is even the only supplier on the entire continent. And yet the US parent company 3M wants to shut down the Dyneon plant in Gendorf by the end of 2025. In the meantime, this has also alarmed Bavarian politicians. On Thursday, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) and Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (FW) pledged their support to the industry and the region during a visit to the chemical park.

In the Bavarian chemical triangle in the district of Altötting, it’s about “exactly the industry of the future that we urgently need,” said Söder. Dyneon is “a key company” in this regard. Because the fluoropolymers, which are largely suspected of causing cancer and other health hazards, are not only used for coatings on frying pans or weatherproof clothing. There has long been a substitute for such applications. According to industry representatives, however, such substances have so far been indispensable, for example to line pipes and tanks in production plants, to produce membranes for fuel cells and to produce battery storage, wind turbine blades, microchips, hydrogen electrolysers and certain medical technology. In the worst case, all of this could soon no longer be manufactured in Europe, Aiwanger warned.

Because 3M is under legal pressure in the USA and is faced with demands to pay for damage to health and the environment from the production of such per- and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFAS). The latter also applies in a similar way to Dyneon in Gendorf, where it manufactured perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) until 2003 and processed it until 2008. Traces of this substance, which has been banned in the EU since 2020, can still be found in the region’s soil and groundwater. The company, along with several other successor companies to the former manufacturer Hoechst, pays for effective filter systems for the regional drinking water suppliers. In the 1990s, the former Hoechst factory in Gendorf became today’s chemical park.

PFAS production could soon be banned in the EU

At the same time, however, 3M, in which PFAS production accounts for only around three to five percent of group sales, also justifies the exit with regulatory risks. In the meantime, at European level, there is a complete ban on the PFAS group of substances, which includes thousands of individual substances and are also known as “forever chemicals” because they are hardly naturally degradable. The German federal government, together with Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, is driving such a ban within the EU, which, depending on the substance, would take effect in one and a half years or in twelve years.

From the point of view of industry representatives from the Bavarian chemical triangle, however, Europe would lose a key technology in this way and make itself existentially dependent on supplies from China, India, Japan or the USA – in mechanical engineering, the automotive industry and also in declared future-oriented sectors such as the production of renewable energies and chip production, in which Europe expressly wants to reduce dependence on external suppliers. In addition, not only the production but also the import of PFAS should be banned in principle, although initially with the possibility of applying for exceptions and extensions of deadlines.

Bavaria’s Economics Minister Aiwanger calls this “an economic policy disaster, homemade at the federal and European level.” For the Prime Minister, too, it is “a serious mistake” to shut down the economically profitable PFAS production in Gendorf, which is now considered the most modern and cleanest in the world. Because another company will hardly be able to take over the plant according to the current status. 3M does not want to sell Dyneon or its plants and – almost more importantly – not its relevant patents either. Not only the Altöttinger District Administrator Erwin Schneider (CSU) interprets this as an attempt to turn away from PFAS in a particularly demonstrative way, in order to be able to refer to one’s own good behavior in upcoming damage claims proceedings in the USA.

Not only the 680 jobs at Dyneon are at stake

In purely regional terms, 680 jobs are directly at stake at Dyneon in Gendorf, plus possibly hundreds more at other companies involved in Dyneon production. A total of around 4,000 people work in the Gendorf Chemical Park. Dyneon employees can count on comparatively good chances of finding work at other companies in the chemical triangle. On the other hand, the pessimists don’t want to be publicly quoted about the chances of keeping up the production of Dyneon and the plant and not letting the Europe-wide supply chains break down – and optimists are hard to find. But if the employees now leave, Dyneon will hardly be able to be saved anyway, warns the spokesman for the Chemdelta Bavaria interest group, Bernhard Langhammer.

In the upcoming state election campaign, Söder and Aiwanger promised help for the region on Thursday, political pressure in Berlin and Brussels and further work at 3M for Dyneon. “At the same time, we know that corporate decisions remain corporate decisions,” said Söder. The state government’s possibilities are “not all-encompassing”.

The same applies to the Bavarian SPD, which also announced itself in a press release on Thursday. “We want to keep the jobs in the chemical park, so we stand by the employees and the union,” said Bavarian SPD co-chair Ronja Endres. But it is also about “not slipping into even more dependency on third countries.” That’s why the SPD’s top candidate, Florian von Brunn, has declared that he wants to “strongly support the preservation of Dyneon at federal and European level.” It would not help anyone if fluorine plastic production was relocated to other countries with often significantly worse social and ecological standards.

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