Crisis has returned to Volkswagen, the flagship of the German car industry. On Monday, the management of the group, which has nine car brands, set the world alight by announcing that, for the first time in the history of its core brand, it was not out of the question to close one or more of VW’s 10 German plants.
Overcapacity at two sites
At an extremely stormy staff meeting attended by 25,000 employees, the group’s finance boss Arno Antlitz got into the thick of things by explaining that two million fewer vehicles are currently being sold on the European market.
As a Berlin correspondent for the French and Swiss press since the late 1990s, I cover a wide range of economic, political and social issues, with a particular focus on the German business and labour market. My areas of interest include co-determination, digitalisation, demographics and ESG/DEI policies.