German labour interest group questions steel transition subsidies

Germany’s Marxist-Leninist MLPD party has criticised German mills’ attempts to obtain public financial support for their technological/energy transitions.

The party’s North Rhine Westphalia chapter says the €2 billion ($2.2 billion) support thyssenkrupp requested from the German government would come from tax funds, while the profits would remain with the private company.

“This is an additional push for the distribution of financial funds from the bottom to the top,” Kallanish reads in a press release by the party. The state would retrieve the money via tax increases and cutbacks in social spending, and inflation will be aggravated. “Effectively, steel workers and the general public will be paying twice,” MLPD notes.

It attacked thyssenkrupp Steel chief executive Bernhard Osburg for his unvarnished statement that “we are not an NGO nor a welfare organisation, but a commercial company that needs to generate profit”. For the same reason, 1,000 jobs at tk Steel and 7,000 across the larger group were axed over the last three years, the party points out.

“Only if society is freed from the pressure of maximum profit, are investments possible for the benefit of the masses and the environment,” MLPD states.

Christian Koehl Germany