Follow live updates on the Germany 2025 elections.
When German voters go to the poll on Sunday, the fate of companies such as SKW Piesteritz will be at the top of their thoughts. The Chemical Factory halved its annual Christmas bonus for employees last year, and it just closed one of his two ammonia plants.
Mammed by high energy costs and what they call excessive German regulations, managers say that they may be forced to move production abroad. That would endanger 10,000 jobs in and around the small community of Lutherstadt Wittenberg in the economically depressive eastern region of the country, which has already been hurt by pullbacks at the company.
“It's a catastrophe,” said Torsten Zugeöroör, the local mayor.
The German election is partly focused on hot-button issues such as immigration and more recently on the threat to the Atlantic Alliance presented by President Trump. But the mandatory concern in daily German life, according to interviews and polls, and the thing that most likely stimulates the choice of voters is the anemic economy of the nation.
Both managers, employees and politicians agree that the next German Chancellor must go quickly to restore the ailing industrial sector of the country, or to risk economic and political disaster in the coming years.
German competitiveness, a source of national pride for a long time, “was never as bad as it is today,” says Petr Cingr, chairman of the SKW board of directors, who makes products such as fertilizers and an additive for diesel engines.
The German economy has not grown in five years. The once powerful industries suffer from what business and workers call a crisis of competitiveness. Structural problems, including crumbling public infrastructure, from bridges and roads to schools; a lack of fast broadband networks; And public services that still work with paper have dragged growth. This also applies to regulations, tax rates and, in particular high energy costs.
Energy prices enriched when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. They have fallen slightly since then, but remain almost 20 percent higher than the European average, according to Eurostat. Managers say that Berlin and Brussels measures that are intended to reduce fossil fuels emissions and to combat climate change have exacerbated the problem.
Increasing competition from China, which is able to produce machines and other industrial products cheaper than German companies, and the impending threat of rates from the United States has increased pressure on German industry.
Basf, the world's largest chemical company, has already begun to close its factories in Germany and to change production to China and the United States.
SKW fears that it can be the next.
“If this becomes a permanent loss -making operation, we cannot exclude the possibility that part of the production will be moved to France, to Austria,” said Carsten Franzke, the head of the company.
The leading candidates for Chancellor have all promised changes in the growth of shock. Olaf Scholz, the sitting Chancellor of the Social Democrats, has promised to increase government spending in targeted industries. Posters throughout the country throw him as the candidate 'Made in Germany'.
The favorite to Mr. Scholz, Friedrich Merz of the Christian – Democrats, has promised to reduce the regulations – including the backing of a few climate goals – reducing taxes and building new advanced nuclear fusion reactors in an attempt to lower energy costs.
“Germany is stuck in stagnation,” said Robert Habeck, the economic minister and the Chancellor candidate for the green party, at the end of last month.
Not all the economic news is grim. Even as the traditional industries of Germany, such as car manufacturing, suffering, the country has expanded its service sector in recent years. The unemployment rate is low, at 3.2 percent, and some economists point out that the country has previously experienced industrial ups and downs.
“Germany has repeatedly experienced phases of the industrialization,” said Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Economic Investigation Institute. He pointed to the textile industry that disappeared a decade later in the 1970s and the electronics industry. “It was difficult for the affected companies and employees, but Germany came back to other sectors,” he said.
SKW is active in several European countries. But since its foundation in 1993, the company, which is located on the Elbe River, has aimed at tuning its products to meet the needs of local farmers.
“We live and die with Germany and Europe,” said Mr. Frantzke.
Lutherstadt Wittenburg lives and dies with SKW for the time being. Apart from its tax assessment, the company has opened its daycare and medical center on site to the public. It has donated money for playgrounds, sports teams and local events. Area Fire Men's training with the Factory Fire Brigade. The company sponsors the local high school prom.
It has stopped new donations this year and the lack of profit means that it will not pay a local business tax. City officials say that they have to reduce the spending for sport and culture to balance this year's budget.
If SKW moved the activities, there is no other industry to replace it, Mr Zugeörör, the mayor said. Many of the well -trained, very skilled employees and their families would leave, a region that has worked in the past three decades to create an attractive standard of living, he said.
“We couldn't compensate for the loss,” he said.
One of the people who run the risk of leaving Valentin Koch, 27, who arrived seven years ago from the western region of Rhineland Palatinate, because he saw more opportunities to find a good job and a life on this Build. He got a job at SKW and worked his way up, became a factory operator and deputy shift manager.
His hope had been to spend the next two to three decades at the company, but he fears that that may not be possible much longer.
Mr. Koch said he was able to cope with last year's unexpected decrease in Christmas bonus, even though he had recently bought his first home. But not everyone was lucky.
“I know some people who have counted on that, who calculated their loans on the bonus payments,” said Mr. Koch. “That makes people more worries. And it all depends on politics. “
Many companies, including SKW, say that government guidelines have increased their costs and have damaged profit, in particular that are aimed at achieving the ambition of Germany to be CO2 neutral by 2045. Mr Franzke hopes that a new government will provide companies more freedom and flexibility to achieve CO2 neutrality, including by using technologies that the government has not defended.
Asked for his desired future government, the Lord Franzke praised the Christian Democrats. He was on the road last week to personally deliver a letter with industrial recommendations for the economy to Mr. Merz, prior to a campaign field.
“We hope that common sense will prevail at a given moment and that the competition will confirm itself in Germany,” said Mr. Franzke.
Mr. Koch was also hopeful, but he was sold less on Mr. Merz. A few days before the elections, he said he still had not decided to support which party.
“It's difficult,” he said. “It's really difficult.”
