VW boss: situation alarming – critics see mismanagement

CEO Oliver Blume has described the economic situation at Volkswagen as alarming. The situation at the VW brand is so serious that everything cannot simply continue as before, Blume told Bild am Sonntag. Fewer vehicles are being bought in Europe. At the same time, new competitors from Asia are entering the market with force. “The cake has become smaller and we have more guests at the table,” said the CEO.

The entire European car industry is in a situation that has never existed before. “And the economic environment has become even more difficult, especially for the VW brand,” said Blume. But there will be no clear-cutting: “We are firmly committed to Germany as a location, because Volkswagen has shaped entire generations.” We have employees whose grandfathers already worked at Volkswagen. I want their grandchildren to be able to work here too.”

At the same time, the manager appealed to the will to change: “Volkswagen also contains the word dare. We have to dare something again: dare to succeed.”

Europe’s largest car manufacturer had announced that it would further tighten the austerity measures taken at its core brand VW in view of the worsening situation. A plant closure in Germany and redundancies are no longer being ruled out. Works council chairwoman Daniela Cavallo announced tough resistance. The crisis at Volkswagen is not the fault of the employees, but of the company’s management. Cavallo described the board’s austerity plans as a “pathetic indictment” and a “declaration of bankruptcy”.

The Left Party leader, Janine Wissler, called on VW shareholders to pay back dividends: “It is unbelievably shabby that a company like Volkswagen, which paid out 4.5 billion euros to its shareholders just last fiscal year, is now claiming that it cannot raise 5 billion euros to prevent factory closures and layoffs,” she told the “Rheinische Post”. If VW needs money, major shareholders like the Porsche-Piëch clan should pay back these 4.5 billion euros. “It cannot be that the employees and ultimately the taxpayers pay the price for years of mismanagement while the shareholders continue to enrich themselves.”

In order to restructure the auto industry and secure jobs, the Left Party leader is calling for, among other things, a state guarantee of further training for employees and the promotion of the production of electric cars and modern trains and buses. “If necessary, we must think about expropriations and state participation,” said Wissler.

SPD leader Saskia Esken accused the VW leadership of not taking electromobility seriously for many years and at the same time placing a strong emphasis on the Chinese market. But it is precisely this market that is now completely switching to electromobility and no longer works for VW. “We cannot solve this with political measures alone,” Esken told the “Handelsblatt”. The SPD leader ruled out federal financial aid to stabilize the VW Group: “The federal budget has little scope for financing.” Esken suggested tackling the acute problems at VW with short-time work. “The four-day week that has already been used in the past is also a model.”