Volkswagen on the ropes: a crisis of its own making

The term "Zeitenwende", meaning "a changing of the times", is being heard rather frequently in Germany at the moment, said Dirk Kaufmann and Nadine Mena Michollek in Deutsche Welle (Bonn). Coined by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in relation to shifting foreign and defence policy demands after Russia invaded Ukraine, it has also come to describe massive changes in the German economy . And no company symbolises these changes quite like Volkswagen, which is reportedly considering closing three of its ten German plants, axing tens of thousands of jobs and cutting pay, as it looks for €4bn in savings after seeing its profits massively eroded by Chinese competitors.

There are some companies that, owing to their size and history, are almost impossible to separate from their home country, said Michael Rasch in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zürich). "Volkswagen is one of them." Founded by the Nazis in 1937 as a state-owned carmaker, it became a symbol of German economic might. And today, following two years of stagnant growth in Germany , it is seriously struggling: profits were down by nearly 64% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2024, and its 300,000-strong workforce could be facing a collective 10% wage cut.