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Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, December 9, 2021
VOLKSWAGEN workers have vowed to fight plans for job cuts and plant closures announced by the German car-maker.
Germany’s biggest company claims that it needs to save €4 billion (£3bn) and says that the existing job security plan agreed in 1994, which involves severance packages and reduced contracts, was not going to be sufficient to make the savings.
On Monday, Volkswagen chief executive Oliver Blume said: “The European car industry currently finds itself in a challenging and serious position.
Friedrich Merz’s call for a new Plaza Accord ignores how Washington’s 1985 currency ambush destroyed Japan without fixing US deficits — China, a sovereign socialist state with 1.4 billion consumers, cannot be bullied the same way, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ
A setback for IG Metall at Tesla’s Berlin plant has ignited claims of intimidation and raised fears for the future of collective bargaining and workplace democracy, says TONY BURKE
NICK WRIGHT returns to Berlin and finds a city in darkness and political turmoil
The cancelled China trip of the German Foreign Minister marks a break with Helmut Schmidt’s China policy and drives Germany further into Washington’s confrontation course, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN