As a German who has been living and working overseas (mainly Australia) for over 5 years, coming back to Germany to visit is such a huge culture shock now. It’s so much less developed compared to 20 or 30 years ago (or at the very least it stagnated), everything is slow and the economy depressing.
Even things that are meant to be easily done online like tax returns are a huge pain. You need to verify yourself by scanning your ID or getting a physical letter with a code sent to you. It’s ridiculous. In Australia you simply log in into your myGov account and handle everything from visa applications, tax returns, health records, welfare payments, child support etc all on one website. It’s super quick and easy.
And unlike Germany, government lingo is easy to understand and accessible. I feel like Germany is purposely trying to keep things as complex as possible to the point where many people have to hire an accountant for tax purposes
In Australia you simply log in into your myGov account and handle everything from visa applications, tax returns, health records, welfare payments, child support etc all on one website. It’s super quick and easy.
This sounds like a security and privacy nightmare. As much as german bureaucracy is over the top in many situations but having to wait one time for a verification-letter for your ELSTER-account is not among the problems.
It’s not though because it’s all 2FA.
And it’s not like you’re forced to use it either, if you prefer to opt out you can still walk into a Govt service centre and be served in person without needing an appointment. Just walk in
Und nebenbei: Tausendmal besser als die ganzen Horrorgeschichten von Immigranten die monatelang auf einen Termin beim Einwohnermeldeamt warten weil alles zigmal länger dauert 🫢 Hier ginge das einfach online und während man auf das Visum wartet hat man ohnehin eine vorübergehende Aufenthaltsgenehmigung mit Arbeitsrecht usw. Deutschland ist dahingehend einfach ein Albtraum und überhaupt nicht der gegenwärtigen Situation angewachsen. Also laber mir nix. Lächerlich einfach
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i remember seeing videos of french firefighters getting attacked by police during protests. The image was completely surreal and very eye opening as to how dysfunctional french government is.
Aren’t we all glad the CDU killed our solar and wind industries to protect the interests of the fossil fuel ones?
But the Green Party!!1 /s
die GRööönneennn
This is such an egregious misrepresentation. These industries were subsidised like crazy, brought cheap products to the market with a head start, and when subsidies ran out they couldn’t compete with the Chinese.
Okay, let’s do it like China.
The subsidies did not run out. They were cut overnight, without much warning, so the industry could not adapt. Even worse they cut legally guranteed subsidies of already finished projects, meaning nobody in the industry trusted the government anymore, as subsidies cut be cut at any point without warning.
Industry needs a stable planning enviroment. If you cut heavy subsidies do it over time in clearly communicated steps, not overnight and breaking previous gurantees.
While yes, the feed-in tariffs dropped in price and capped eligible additions once 52GW of capacity was installed, this only shook the heavily propped-up domestic market. Had the German manufacturers produced anything better than the rest of the world they could have exported their stuff as German engineering did since forever. However, what they produced was nothing special, solar panels are pretty low-tech that can be produced in China for a fraction of the cost in the same quality so naturally they win out. All the money should have went to the development of high-end solutions that demand engineering and manufacturing prowess and cannot easily be copied, not focus and subsequently rely on shipping lots and lots of units. This is a game high-income countries will always lose in today’s globalized economy.
Not saying that the German solar industry was in great shape but …
- The Chinese products were heavily subsidized as well.
- The German governments at the time also made sure to kill the domestic market, with its “breathing” installation limits for wind and solar.
2022 Chinese renewable energy subsidies totalled 600 million USD. That’s peanuts.
2020 Chinese renewable energy subsidies totalled 807 million USD.
I was talking about 2010…2015 but you cited very recent numbers. I was talking about producers of polysilicon and panels, your numbers are for solar farms/wind farms/biomass generators. And they don’t seem to be complete, either.
Germany, meanwhile, allocated 4 billion euros annually to subsidize electricity prices for industry.
This plan is opposed by the chancelor and the minister of finance. Safe to say it won’t happen this year.
The link you sent refers to subsidies from previous years that haven’t actually been paid out yet. The Chinese government did the classic play of “here’s some subsidies jokes haha we’ll totally pay you ten years later if you’re not bankrupt by then haha.”
So… Thanks for helping my point, I guess? For a historical perspective, China’s solar PV subsidies have been almost entirely demand-side with the exception of academic research grants, national labs, and poverty-alleviating policies.
It’s not like subsidizing an emerging industry is that unusual: the problem is usually when people keep subsidizing output from that industry after it’s a mature competitor. German subsidies were at, what, 37c/kWh with 8877MW (8760 hours per year, 25% typical daily efficiency) installed in 2010? Those subsidies are massive, so either Germany is incompetent at solar PV development or neoliberal policies don’t work and the government should have been more active in managing the nascent industry.
So… Thanks for helping my point, I guess?
But you do realize that you quoted numbers for the wrong part of the economy in the wrong timeframe!?
For a historical perspective, China’s solar PV subsidies have been almost entirely demand-side with the exception of academic research grants, national labs, and poverty-alleviating policies.
Please let me know when you find any proof of that. There’s a reason why there is an entire solar supply chain concentrated in Xinjiang, rather than some more developed coastal region. (It’s subsidies.)
Every country will struggle in the near future. Some sooner, some later. To me it seams like we have reached the limits of what we can have. What we have is very badly distributed but it really comes down to how many things, how many computers, shoes, containerships, gold watches, private jets, truckloads of harvested corn, clothes and everything else can there be. We could redistribute and we could recycle but we’re not doing both in any meaningful amount.
Remember, this metric of “worst performing county” takes only the economy into account and with limited resources there is no endless growth.
Btw. This doesn’t mean we can’t be happy. We’re not the economy and we’re not the stuff we own.
We’re not the economy and we’re not the stuff we own.
This realization is still extremely far out for a huge percentage of the German populace unfortunately.
Yes, that’s true. After all, Germany is still more or less a welfare state with statutory health insurance and so on. To further undermine this in favor of economic competitiveness does not seem desirable to me, for example in view of the situation in America.
Can a welfare state still function with zero or temporarily negative GDP growth?
Yes? Easily.
Basicly 16 years of stoping all green projects and then being hit by a fossil fuel crisis. The fact of the matter is that Germany had the lowest industrial electricity prices for decades, by moving the cost to households, which got some of the highest prices in Europe due to that. Gas was cheap and nearly not taxed at all. All of that in a system with clear caps on emissions and well something has to give.
Even worse a massive unwillingness to pay for infrastructure using debt. Germany is in good shape financially and it would be relativly easy to just pay for a lot of infrastrucuture. That is partly happening, but obviously there are also labour, material and time problems making this take years to finish.
Then there is a massive problem with consumption. Wages have not kept up with inflation, while there are worker shortages. Welcome to a perfectly working labour market. Anyway that obviously means less consumption in Germany, which hurts the economy.
However there is no reason that some good governance could not solve it and it is a fossil fuel crisis, which destroys industries based on processes we do not want to use due to climate change. It could be an extremly healthy crisis if managed well.
Wages have not kept up with inflation, while there are worker shortages. Welcome to a perfectly working labour market.
Not to mention the rising right wing anti-immigration rhetoric which doesn’t make it easier to find workers elsewhere.
he fact of the matter is that Germany had the lowest industrial electricity prices for decades, by moving the cost to households, which got some of the highest prices in Europe due to that.
How so?
Two parts really. First of all Germany is using guranteed prices for renewables, but the plant operators still have to sell it on the electricity exchange. So when there is renewable elecricity the prices fall a lot. To still create a fair price the cost for those feed in tariffs obviously cost money, which was added on the electricity price of households and small companies.
The other one is lowering grid operating costs for large consumers to below market value. Those costs again needed to be paid, so they were added to households and small companies.
That ended up with half the cost of German household electricity being taxes and other payments to the government. That massivly delayed heat pump installations and electric car sales in Germany, as they were not able to compete as well with gas heating or combustion engines.
not to forget that we have a lot of industry in the south but the wealthy southern NIMBYs fought against renewables and transmission lines, so the renewable energy in the north was virtually sold to the south but couldnt get there so they had to run the fossil plants there. This “system service” was then paid for by the people in the north. So instead of using clean energy cheaply the people had to pay extra for shutting down plants in the north and run dirty ones in the south.
Of course creating two market zones as called for by experts was fought teeth and nails by the southern states. German federalism with the superiority complex and robbery attitude from Bavaria and Baden-Wurttenberg is a bane on the countries development.
The key here is to have a conservative government for 16 years in a row to make absolutely sure anything innovative is made as hard as possible to achieve.
Germany was governed for the last 16 years by people that desperately want to live in 1996 because that is when their back didn’t hurt and “everything was great” (?)
Don’t forget the other 16 years under Kohl from 1982 to 1998. Basically we have been CDU governed for more than 3/4 of the last 40 years. And because people are upset that some changes are necessary now they are going to vote CDU again (or worse).
That is not what the article says at all though. It solely blames the SPD and current government. It‘s just good old German bashing without much substance.
Actually, there’s this:
These outside shocks have exposed cracks in Germany’s foundation that were ignored during years of success, including lagging use of digital technology in government and business and a lengthy process to get badly needed renewable energy projects approved.
Other dawning realizations: The money that the government readily had on hand came in part because of delays in investing in roads, the rail network and high-speed internet in rural areas. A 2011 decision to shut down Germany’s remaining nuclear power plants has been questioned amid worries about electricity prices and shortages. Companies face a severe shortage of skilled labor, with job openings hitting a record of just under 2 million.
For some reason, they don’t mention the CxU though. I am also annoyed that they don’t mention the debt-stop mechanism which CxU added to the constitution and which FDP is now leveraging to make shitty economic decisions.
A 2011 decision to shut down Germany’s remaining nuclear power plants has been questioned amid worries about electricity prices and shortages.
This is just a populist talking point. The nuclear power plants were at or very close to the end of their design lifespan, only covered a small single digit percentage of power usage and produced the most expensive electricity among all the power generation in the country.
While it’s true that this is a populist talking point, some minor quibbles:
- In 2011, nuclear produced around 18% of German electricity. In 2022, that had decreased to 6% as Germany had been shutting off a few reactors each year. Essentially you’re right though, Germany never rivaled France’s 70% nuclear figure and if nuclear were supposed to have a future, Germany would have needed a lot of new reactors and that would have been cost-prohibitive.
- Canada proves that you can extend the lifespan, given significant investment.
- With nuclear, a lot of the money is spent upfront. By the time you make that calculation, the biggest chunk of the money is gone, as long as you don’t build new reactors or perform massive do-overs like Canada did. Thus discussing the economics of already-built nuclear reactors is a bit pointless, unless you’re purely doing it to learn from your mistakes (i.e. prevent building new reactors).
They don‘t because they don‘t want you to think about the failures of the conservatives. They even frame problems that occured in the Merkel era as problems the SPD introduced as if 16 years wasn‘t more than enough time to fix those. Of course they do not apply the same logic to current problems but instead put the blame on germany as a whole. And don‘t get me started on their far fetched disgnoses of said problems. It‘s a shit article to say the least.
And from 2025 we will have another 16 years with the conservatives if we are very lucky not to have the far right take over
