Germany’s biggest companies said on Tuesday they had formed an alliance to campaign against extremism ahead of key European Parliament elections, when the far right is expected to make strong gains.
The 30-company alliance includes blue-chip conglomerates such as BMW, BASF and Deutsche Bank, as well as family businesses and start-ups.
“Blocking, extremism and populism are threats to Germany as a business location and to our well-being,” the alliance said in a statement.
“In their first joint campaign, the companies are calling on their 1.7 million employees to take part in the upcoming European elections and take part in numerous activities to highlight the importance of European unity for prosperity, growth and jobs,” he added.
The unusual action by the industrial giants came as the latest polls show the far-right AfD will take around 15% of the EU vote next month in Germany, tied for second place with the Greens behind the conservative CDU-CSU alliance.
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A series of recent scandals, including the arrest of a researcher working for an AfD MEP, have seen the party’s popularity plummet since the turn of the year, although it remains just ahead of Chancellor Olaf Solz’s Social Democrats.
Already struggling with severe shortages of skilled workers, many German businesses fear that the far-right’s gains could further erode the attractiveness of Europe’s largest economy to migrant labor.
The alliance estimates that aging Germany already has 1.73 million job vacancies, while an additional 200,000 to 400,000 workers will be needed annually in the coming years.
Wolf-Dieter Adlhoch, CEO of the Dussmann Group, noted that 68,000 people from more than 100 nations work in the family business.
“For many of them, their work with us, for example in cleaning buildings or in geriatric care, is their entry into the primary labor market and therefore the key to successful integration. Hatred and exclusion have no place here.” he said.
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Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch warned that “isolationism, extremism and xenophobia are poison for German exports and jobs here in Germany – we must therefore not give room to terrorists and fall back on so-called simple solutions their”.
The alliance said it was planning a social media campaign to highlight the call against extremism and urged other companies to join its initiative.
He added that the campaign would continue after the EU elections, with three eastern German states voting for regional parliaments in September.
In all three — Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony — the far-right AfD party leads the polls.
Source: AFP