East German politicians do not want to hear about it – and even less about the necessary, hard countermeasures. That is too uncomfortable for them.
Thuringia’s Minister of Economic Affairs Wolfgang Tiefensee was the first to publicize his displeasure with the results of the Halle economists. „Nothing new,“ he brushed off the researchers. And: The proposed recipes his mostly long known and unhelpful.
The reason for Tiefensees disgust: The head of the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Halle (IWH) once again took stock of how far the East German economy has made progress with its catching-up process. With sobering result: After a spurt in the nineties, the catching-up process is slowing down. Since then, the new federal states have been able to keep pace with the general productivity progress in the rest of Germany and the G7 states.
Even this fact could be considered somewhat sober and thought-out about possible solutions – if the root-cause analysis of economics professors did not yield a few very inconvenient findings. If one were to implement what the researchers suggest, there would probably be fire under the roof in the East German parliaments. In Eastern Germany, three state elections will be held this year: in Thuringia, elections will take place on 27 October, in Saxony and Brandenburg on 1 September. No wonder that Tiefensee brakes.
Shy of strangers
The IWH experts are in favor of
Instead of using subsidies to preserve traditional structures, they should instead invest in promising regions of the future.
In addition, one must take the Ostdeutschen the shy away from strangers, because without foreign workers can be achieved in the near future, productivity progress no longer in the face of demographic change.
And, thirdly, ways must be found to motivate the East German students to graduate. The number of early school leavers is significantly high.
That politicians like Tiefensee react sensitively to analyzes of this kind, especially before elections, can be understood in principle. Because they bear the responsibility for a good part of the problems. Instead of proclaiming the unpleasant truth and strenuous measures to the voters from the outset, the state governments repeatedly counterbalanced the lack of competitiveness of industrial and agricultural enterprises with subsidies. In agriculture, for example, there are seven of the top ten most subsidized regions in East Germany.
Education policy neglected
Even their former parade discipline, education policy, have neglected the East German politicians too long. Nowhere is the number of abandoned school careers as high as here. The reasons are certainly diverse and very complex. But one thing is certain: nowhere is the shortage of qualified teachers so great as in the east of the republic. It is easy to predict in the long term how many students will go to school and how many teachers will retire.
Also, the recipes, which present the IWH researchers to help the East German economy on the jumps, do not like Tiefensee and Co. like. Because they would have to explain to their voters in the province why they cancel long-established benefits.
And they would have to explain to them that they will have to come to terms with new neighbors with foreign names if the companies in their region want to seize the growth opportunities in the future. And all of that they need to explain against the chorus of populists, who work with simplifications, distortions, and defamation to enforce their backward-looking goals. They prefer to appease. Is soon a choice.
