DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi warns of far-reaching wrong decisions in the climate-friendly restructuring of the German economy. “It would be a blatant mistake to do without industrial production in Germany just to calculate your own climate balance,” said Fahimi of the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. She sees potential jobs at risk, especially in energy-intensive sectors such as the steel industry, the chemical industry and the production of aluminum and copper.
“To do without all this and to change from an exporting country to an importing country would be economic suicide,” emphasized the chairwoman of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB). “It is unacceptable that we shrink ecologically to health through industrial dismantling. We expect qualitative growth and job creation from the transformation.”
The DGB chairwoman advocated the establishment of so-called transformation funds. The aim is to mobilize funds from private investors in addition to investments from the public sector. “We have to mobilize the enormous private assets in Germany for the transformation according to the motto: Good conscience – good profits.” Fahimi suggested that the state could issue government bonds with the criteria of climate neutrality and good employment in collective bargaining and co-determined companies.
