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German businesses are going bust in alarming numbers, claims AfD co-leader Alice Weidel. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is devoting his strength and taxpayers’ money to Kyiv, she charged. The numbers for the first part of her statement are dramatic.
"A wave of bankruptcies is sweeping across our country," Weidel said. "Every 19 minutes, a company in Germany goes bankrupt. In the third quarter of this year alone, the wave of insolvencies affected 41,000 jobs. Many of them will disappear permanently."
The 19-minute figure traces to official data from the Federal Statistical Office. There were 2,373 corporate insolvencies in July, 8% up on the previous year and thus the highest July figure since 2013. As small-business expert Marc Evers of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry told n-tv: “Every 19 minutes a company in Germany goes insolvent.” In the seven months to end-July a total of 15,185 corporate insolvencies were registered, 6.9% up on the same period of the previous year. Insolvencies were most frequent in the transport and storage sector, followed by the hospitality industry and construction.
The figure of 41,000 jobs also corresponds with the third-quarter insolvency tracker from the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH). According to this, there were approximately 4,880 cases of insolvency of partnerships and capital companies in the third quarter, down 2.3% from the record high of the second quarter. However, this still corresponds with the second highest number of quarterly cases of insolvency since 2005 and approximately 41,000 jobs were affected, about 10% fewer than in the second quarter. Weidel’s assertion that many of these jobs will disappear permanently is her own assessment and not a statistic.
Smaller businesses have not yet experienced the upswing the government is predicting for this year. Instead, according to n-tv, they are slipping into insolvency more and more often. Evers said the small upswing “threatens to be short-lived, because it is based mainly on high, debt-financed government spending.”
Weidel then turned to Merz. "Your chancellor’s favorite maneuver is to go abroad and slip into the role of a foreign-policy chancellor whenever the desolate state of this coalition becomes too much for him," she said. "A chancellor who gives martial speeches in the capital of another country, namely Kyiv, and throws German taxpayers' money out the window for new Ukraine aid shows one thing: He is there for everyone and everything, except Germany and the interests of Germans."
When Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and representatives from Siemens Energy, Hensoldt, Diehl Defence and Quantum Systems joined Chancellor Friedrich Merz on his trip to Kyiv by train on Oct. 4, according to DW, a German support package worth more than 1.3 billion euros was announced by President Zelensky. Military aid would be worth 1 billion euros and 350 million euros would go to repair energy infrastructure in time for winter. The two countries had signed 15 agreements worth more than 8.5 billion euros, the President said.
Merz said that halting the war is also in Germany’s interest. “If Russia is not stopped, it will turn its war machine against us sooner or later,” he said upon his arrival. He added that German and Ukrainian companies are developing technology that benefits both countries.
Germans can make up their own minds about the government’s claims. But they should read both stories. While Chancellor Merz was traveling to Kyiv to sign off on a new package of aid to the Ukrainian government, companies in Germany were going bust left and right. The latest figures show a company going insolvent about every 19 minutes, with tens of thousands of jobs affected in the third quarter alone.
Weidel asks an easy question: who is this government serving? Merz believes Germany’s security is at stake in Ukraine. Weidel believes the Chancellor has time for everyone, just not for Germany. The insolvency tables, however, are what many Germans reading these two reports will remember.
Berlin has not answered this question to the satisfaction of the people who are shutting down their businesses. Until Berlin does, Weidel will keep asking this question and the pile of bankruptcy notices will continue to prove her point.
