German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged the European Union to give a boost to electric vehicle sales and support carmakers with an EU-wide sales incentive during a visit to US carmaker Ford’s plant in Cologne on Tuesday.
Scholz’s visit comes after Ford announced plans for large-scale job cuts at the Cologne plant and elsewhere in Europe.
The German chancellor spoke with around 8,000 employees who attended a works council meeting on Tuesday morning, many of whom now fear for their jobs. Ford has announced plans to eliminate about one in four of the current 12,000 jobs in Cologne by 2027.
The atmosphere at the meeting was heated. The IG Metall trade union has vowed to fight the looming cuts.
“Olaf, without elections you wouldn’t care about us,” shouted some employees, a reference to upcoming early elections in which Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) are hoping for strong support from their traditional industrial working-class base.
Some workers held posters with slogans including “No more talking” and “Ready to strike.” Attendees vented frustration mostly against Ford management, but also German politicians.
Ford manufactures two electric car models in the city, which were launched earlier this year. Sales so far have been slow and disappointing.
Electric vehicle sales in Germany plummeted this year after an earlier purchase subsidy worth several thousand dollars expired at the end of 2023.
Ahead of Scholz’s visit, Ford’s works council called for the reintroduction of incentives for people to buy electric vehicles in order to boost flagging demand, pointing to countries like France, where funding is linked to income or provided as a lump sum.
Scholz argued that EU-wide electric vehicle incentives would be the best way forward “because it would then also be accompanied by, for example, an expansion of the charging infrastructure throughout Europe.”
The second-best way, he said, would be to allow Europe to stimulate the production of electric cars at a national level, but did not offer more specifics.
The head of the works council at Ford Germany, Benjamin Gruschka, called for the introduction of a new electric car purchase incentive to boost the weakening demand.
“We have to do something, we have to tackle the transformation and we need an important, strong political framework,” said Gruschka.
Marcus Wassenberg, managing director of the local Ford manufacturing subsidiary Ford-Werke GmbH, said that the necessary effort would only work if companies, politicians and the trade unions worked together.
Scholz met with Ford management and the works council behind closed doors before addressing the gathered employees.
Ford had long relied on vehicles with combustion engines and only invested in electromobility relatively late – but then with financial determination.
The Cologne plant was rebuilt at a cost of almost €2 billion ($2.1 billion) and designed for electric vehicles. The timing for the sales launch this year was bad, as demand collapsed just as the factory began producing vehicles.
Ford is among many traditional carmakers that have struggled to find success with electric models. German auto giant Volkswagen has partly blamed sluggish electric sales for austerity plans which could include plant closures and mass lay-offs.
Just 70 kilometres north of Cologne, another long-standing German industrial icon, thyssenkrupp Steel, is also planning to cut thousands of jobs.
But despite the bad news, Scholz argued on Tuesday that Germany remains a strong industrial country and the government will do everything possible to keep it that way.
“Because we are at the forefront of technology, because we manufacture globally competitive products and goods,” he said.
(dpa)
