The finance minister was the final straw. Saarstahl boss Stefan Rauber has become aware of the fact that the Chancellor is suffering from a “denial of reality” and that those responsible in the “Berlin Crystal Ball” no longer know what is actually going on. But if Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) now calls on entrepreneurs to be more willing to take risks, then his attitude will be over. Only people who have no idea could talk like that, says Rauber. He had to manage a four billion euro project in Saarland, with maximum economic and political uncertainty. And he has to look employees in the eye several times a year at company meetings. “Lindner is happy to share sleepless nights with me.” Dare to take more risks, that’s a statement made by someone from the FDP of all people – “The bus is laughing!”Rauber invited people to the interview. For the first time since he took over the management of the two Saarland steel companies Saarstahl and Dillinger Hütte just over a year ago. The date was chosen deliberately; the national steel summit will take place in Duisburg next week. Unlike the chemistry summit, the Chancellor is not coming. Especially now that Thyssenkrupp’s problems are becoming obvious. Thyssenkrupp is not a direct competitor, the problems are not comparable, says Rauber, but of course there is now a “negative impact”. Rauber, 46 years old, two small children, born on the Saar, needs to speak. Rise with MaasRauber himself grew up in politics, at the side of the former Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. He was managing director of the SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament, head of department in the SPD-led Ministry of Economic Affairs, and since 2020 managing director of the Montan-Stiftung-Saar, owner of the two steel companies. Always right in the middle of Saarland. He knows that as a politician you have to have a profile neurosis, he says, but what is happening now borders on a loss of reality. “It can’t go on like this.” Nobody is questioning climate protection, he says, the steel companies are doing what politicians want them to do. But then the framework conditions would also have to be right. Energy prices are far too high and hydrogen dreams will never come true. Whether the border adjustment in the EU works, according to which steel importers have to pay a fine if their steel was not produced green? Rauber has doubts. But the most important thing is energy prices. He doesn’t care if the government announces that they have fallen back to pre-war levels. Energy simply costs far too much in an international comparison, but in Berlin many people don’t think internationally enough. For Rauber it is clear that this cannot be achieved without an industrial electricity price. Less than four cents per kilowatt hour. A check for 2.6 billion euros. The “hydrogen dreams,” as he calls them, left him speechless. Green hydrogen is not competitive in Europe. In many regions of the world, renewable energy and therefore the production of green hydrogen are much cheaper. Sometimes twenty times as cheap. “I can only advise everyone to finally take the sand out of their eyes.”Rauber should actually be happy with the policy. Economics Minister Robert Habeck brought a check for 2.6 billion euros to Saarland in December to restructure production. Mostly financed by the federal government, with the already heavily indebted state also on board – to date the largest single funding in the steel industry. The framework conditions have to be all the more right, says Rauber and points to the lack of lead markets. Saarstahl has been producing rails, green rails in other words, in an electric steelworks in Lorraine for some time. The French SNCF is a customer; Deliveries were made to Austria, Belgium, South Africa, and even for the metro expansion in Paris. Only Deutsche Bahn doesn’t buy rails, because the state-owned company doesn’t have a “green bonus”, so only the price counts. That is downright absurd, given the high level of funding.450,000 pages of paper Rauber finds the bureaucracy no less absurd: So far, 450,000 A4 pages and 20,000 A0 drawings have been requested to approve the new systems, and 20 authorities are busy with this , 100 people were assigned to this at Dillinger and Saarstahl. There is no state secretary with whom he has not yet spoken about this – there is a lot of understanding, but nothing will change. Rauber also wants to reorganize the two companies by the end of the year. Streamline structures, become more efficient, and align the technology-driven industry with sales and markets, as he says. This will not happen without capacity cuts in the administration; layoffs are not planned. More on the topic The steel companies still employ a good 13,000 people in Saarland. In an international comparison, both companies are small players with a total turnover of seven billion euros, but are still very relevant as employers. All the more so after Ford announced the end of production and the promised large-scale settlements of an American chip manufacturer and a Chinese battery manufacturer are a long time coming. What makes him confident that the show of strength will succeed despite everything is the solidarity, he says. Everyone in the group is pulling together and they are ahead of the competition. The first of the two blast furnaces is scheduled to be shut down by 2030 at the latest. Then it is here, the new time.
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