German CEOs Caution AfD Rise Could Harm Exports
September 25 2017 - 1:30PM
Dow Jones News
By William Boston
BERLIN -- German business leaders on Monday warned that the rise
of a nationalist anti-immigration party could hurt the nation's
export-driven economy.
The anti-immigration Alternative for Deutschland, or AfD, won
13% of the vote, making them the third-largest political faction in
parliament after Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the
left-leaning Social Democrats. The AfD, which garnered little
support in previous elections, benefited from a voter backlash over
Ms. Merkel's open-door refugee policy that allowed more than one
million refugees to enter the country in the last two years.
While business leaders called on Ms. Merkel to create a new
government coalition focused on improving the conditions for doing
business in Germany, including tax reform and helping Germany catch
up in the digital transformation of industry and commerce, they
appeared most concerned that the emergence of nationalist and
protectionist politics embodied by the right-wing AfD could harm
exports.
"It will change our country and test the stability of our
democracy," Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Matthias Müller said in a
statement, adding that he was shocked by the AfD's ability to gain
seats in parliament. "In the globalized world of business, a
beggar-thy-neighbor mindset and protectionism are a dead-end street
-- one that ultimately means the loss of jobs."
Joe Kaeser, chief executive of Siemens AG, compared the
complacency of German elites while the AfD gained popularity in
recent years with the failure to stop the rise of Hitler's Nazi
party in the 1930s.
"This political victory is also a defeat for Germany's elites,"
he said in a statement. "We have dismissed the AfD's voters as
people on the fringes of society. We have again stood by and
watched this happen, and that has to change."
It is rare for Germany's leading executives to comment publicly
on national politics. They tend to leave that job to their
respective industry associations, which are well-funded and
powerful lobbying machines.
That fact that some are speaking out is a sign of how deep the
shock is over the erosion of support for Germany's mainstream
parties and surge in support for the nationalist AfD.
Many of Germany's largest corporations including Volkswagen,
Siemens and Daimler AG were complicit with the Nazi regime and have
in recent years published detailed histories of their use of slave
labor.
Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche didn't comment
personally, but his spokesman said the company was committed to a
"liberal democratic constitutional order."
"For us, that means respecting basic and human rights, defending
democratic principles as well as the rule of law, standing up for a
social market economy and a unified Europe," the spokesman said in
a statement.
Dieter Kempf, the president of the Federation of German
Industry, or BDI, said the AfD was opposed to all the things that
made Germany a strong economic power and that "Germany must remain
a strong and open country."
The head of Germany's leading engineering association, the VDMA,
dismissed the AfD's anti-European stance and said "free markets and
open societies create prosperity and jobs. No one has ever advanced
by retreating to his own homeland."
Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 25, 2017 13:15 ET (17:15 GMT)
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