The new Prime Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) immediately showed the importance of the auto industry and especially the Volkswagen Group for the state government in Lower Saxony on the day of his election. Lies, 58 years old, had only been chosen by the state parliament in Hanover as the successor to the long-standing SPD head of government Stephan Weil. Then the new cabinet sent him to the supervisory board of the VW Group. Lower Saxony holds about 20 percent of the group’s voting rights, the state government is represented on the Supervisory Board. And reads there again of the highest waiting, with what problems the whole industry is fighting. VW is in a job cuts that will cost thousands of jobs in the core country of Lower Saxony. The location of many suppliers, which are rushed out of cost pressure, competition and technical upheaval in the storm, is even more precarious. The large-scale supplier Continental, headquartered in Hanover, will soon be split into an electronics and a tire manufacturer, and Lies speaks openly about an “alarm sign” that comes from the ranks of the suppliers. Small and medium -sized companies in the country in particular would be struggling, he said on Wednesday evening at Club Hamburg business journalist (CHW). Germany must ensure that the automotive value chain and its supplier structure are not lost. Lies knows the meaning exactly, after all, he always had to do with her in different functions. In 2013 he became Minister of Economics for the first time in the first cabinet of the Prime Minister. He was sitting on the Supervisory Board of the VW Group for a while. He later became the Environment Minister and also had a lot to do with traffic and infrastructure in this function before taking over the business department three years ago, but this time without post in Wolfsburg. In addition to Weil, a representative of the green coalition partner moved into the VW supervisory board, Julia Willie Hamburg. The new Prime Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) Dpafür Lies is important to return to the committee, also with a view to the state election, which he has to face in two years. After all, the VW post radiates a lot of responsibility, and the employees of the group are an important group of voters of the Social Democrats. This is how their interests have an eye on their dealings with the savings program. VW plans to delete 35,000 jobs by the end of the decade at German locations. The fact that management is serious was recently underpinned by current numbers. According to this, the board around VW boss Oliver Blume has already concluded agreements with 20,000 employees who want to leave the group about partial retirement or with severance payments. Some in Hanover may have literally swallowed. Because in many places there is still hope that the incisions may only be half as bad when the market for electric cars finally attracts. Lies in the CHW that the agreement between IG Metall and the board applies and is implemented. But he then pushes: “We have to be careful that we don’t forget in the swing of the mining that we also have to be able to act.” The aim is to maintain the works. And the exact size of the job cuts achieves is “always a bit dependent” on how the sales developed. New models, just like the coalition agreement of the new federal government, which also contained new instruments to promote e-mobility. The father speaks, who, in addition to the economy, also addresses the fear of the employees. In Lower Saxony, this is an eternal balancing act that has already prevented necessary cuts in some conflicts of previous years, and more on the subject of dealing with the double role of VW boss Blume seems to be more difficult. This leads the group and its stock market -noded subsidiary Porsche at the same time. Representatives of small shareholders and funds have long been calling for flower to concentrate fully on VW and release the Porsche leadership. Lies thinks that a “strong work concentrated on the group” is necessary. However, when asked, he expressly does not want this to be understood as a criticism of Blume’s double role. Flower does a good job, everything else is being discussed. When it comes to VW, clear statements are difficult, despite all importance for the federal state.
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