Germany is a ‘sick case’, says former EU Commissioner

by Nick Alipour

Germany is ‘a sick case’ and in dire need of innovation and reform, Gunther Oettinger, a former German EU Commissioner, explained at a conference on Thursday.

Oettinger, a member of the centre-right CDU, was the country’s commissioner between 2010 and 2019, successively heading the energy, digital economy and budget departments. He retired from his European stint in 2019 when Ursula von der Leyen became European Commission President and filled the German Commission slot.

“To me, Germany is free falling, a country in decline,” Oettinger told a conference of German newspaper publishing houses on Thursday before using even more dramatic words, calling Germany “a sick case, in need of restoration.”

Elaborating on the matter, Oettinger pointed to the risk of a “loss of prosperity” in the country over a lack of innovation and slow-moving reforms.

Recently, Germany has been hit by a string of bad news regarding its economy, which has been heavily affected by the war in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, the ifo Institute for Economic Research, one of Germany’s most important economic research institutions, projected that the German economy would shrink by 0.4% in 2023, correcting the previously forecasted decline of 0.1% – lowering its initial predictions just like the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Ifw) before it.

Oettinger called for a fundamental reform of the German state similar to the Agenda 2010, a set of social and economic measures initiated by the centre-left government of then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroder that radically reshaped Germany’s economy in the early 2000s.

“None of this can be seen anywhere today. Back then, we acquired a competitive advantage, but we have exhausted all of it by now,” Oettinger claimed.

Since his exit from the Commission, Oettinger has accepted several commitments, mainly on the boards of companies, foundations and think tanks. He is also currently the president of the EBS University of Business and Law, Germany’s only private university.

*first published in: Euractiv.com