Volkswagen’s woes illustrate Germany’s creeping deindustrialisation

The spectre of deindustrialisation has lengthy haunted Germany. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 precipitated power costs to spiral. The financial system of Germany’s greatest buying and selling accomplice, China, has slowed. And as rivals, Chinese language carmakers are proving greater than a handful for Europe’s greatest, Volkswagen (VW). Now the apparition appears to be like worryingly strong. “The indicators of deindustrialisation have gotten clearer,” warned Martin Wansleben, head of the German chamber of commerce and business (DIHK), on October twenty ninth.