Germany stops arms exports to Saudi Arabia, to set an international character. The Region, where ships are built, to resist the tax. Kay-Alexander Scholz reported from Wolgast.
Wolgast in November is rough. A cold sea breeze blowing, in the evening, you hardly ever see people on the streets. The medieval port town has sins still charm: many half-timbered houses and little new construction. But Wolgast is located in the middle of a so-called structurally weak Region. This can be seen already on the way from Berlin. At some point there are more red warning lights of wind turbines on the fields as a car tail-lights on the highway. After a while, nothing flashes at all.
In the small town arrived, a Wake-up call: The road leading to the Hotel needs to be renovated. “Actually, we need to block the road,” says mayor Stefan Weigler. His dream of rehabilitated roads is burst first, to be exact: 180 kilometres further South, in Berlin. There, the Federal government has imposed an Export ban on arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia. A part of that patrol boats will be produced in the 70-year-old shipyard on the Baltic sea. So the great policy also came to Wolgast. Now the people have to pay here, so they fear, “for Angela Merkel’s stance on human rights bitter”.
Not 200, but only 40 sausages
In a small Hotel close to the Peene shipyard with its huge blue halls, three men sitting together at dinner. They are temporary workers. Cheap Hotels are your second home, to the daily Commute, the commute would just be too far. The life of “on installation”, far away from home, does not make you happy, it shows. In particular, they do not want to be quoted. Finally, it would be produced on the yard arms. That is: high level of security. To be the GDR-times, ships have been built for the people’s Navy.
4000 people worked in 1989 at the shipyard, privatization, downsizing, bankruptcy 2013 finally saving the order for the patrol boats. “One of the now 300 shipyard worker feeds three others in the Region,” outlines the most talkative of the three, the whole drama. The shipyard canteen had to get it to feel: Not 200, but only 40 sausages went away every day, says his neighbor is distressed.
For Wolgast it would be the “death knell”
Wolgasts mayor Stefan Weigler fights to his already battered city on the Baltic coast
For Stefan Weigler – independent, 38 years old, and for ten years mayor of the city, is the halt in the arms export Deal with Saudi Arabia, the most important issue at the moment. They were all taken, “if I ‘we’ say, I mean of course the shipyard, but it is so tight that it is all ‘we’.” A third of the industrial jobs in the Region would depend on the shipyard. The boats are mounted in Wolgast ready-to-use and set up. By order of the local heating-, electric – life, and sanitary firms are estimated 1800 Jobs that depend on it.
It is, at least for the shipyard workers, not unemployment. Shipbuilding is booming. The neighboring yards looking for 400 skilled workers. The Wolgaster, many of them highly specialized welder, would be quickly out of the way, should be here for you no future, says Weigler. For the city, but it would be the “death knell”. Especially financially – in the year 2019 would break a quarter of the budget gone.
The Worries don’t just sit in the wrinkles on the forehead of the mayor. Here is the number one topic of conversation, according to the owner of a lunch snack with home cooking-German kitchen. Many of the wives of shipyard workers were. “It’s sad,” sighs a house owner in the shipyard district, close to the broken streets. “The ships to be built anyway and delivered by only one other country”.
Why the stop in production is so delicate is
The order for Saudi Arabia includes 34 boats, 15 are already out. Six more are ready, but will not be delivered. Twelve are still missing – which would have utilized the shipyard until the middle of 2020. The particular tragedy: “now, you can not simply slide a other order between,” explains the mayor. Because of the huge production halls will be rebuilt on every request. Back you start, the front of the finished ship comes out, almost like on a conveyor belt, only much larger. But the orders and then even the professionals are missing, it could make the entrepreneur, the German Lürssen group, the location of the sealing.
Ten-year-old Aerial photograph of the Peene-Werft: at the Time, really big boats were yet (as on the right in the image) produced
The three workers at the dinner, a shake of the head. Germany wanted to show the world again how great it was, says one of them. But the politics will be surprised and even a high price for their behavior to pay. “In the last elections, the people have chosen in some areas, the majority of the NPD,” adds the third-party workers. Quite apart from the many AfD voters, because the proportion is in Germany the highest.
Yet more fodder for the AfD
Mayor Weigler surprised the little. He shows an aerial image of his city: “you See the building above?”. There, in the well-Off and medium-sized companies, the AfD got 40 percent. “It’s not all right-wing radicals, which have the snout full, it was a cry for help to the policy.” Always, if it is in the last few years, so be gone, to join the infrastructure in the state, have lost the city. As with the Closing of the maternity ward, a decision of the competent Minister shortly before Christmas. Although, more children would be born. Or at the Close of the district court. “600 years of Tradition 85 jobs will be wiped out!”. He himself cannot decide anything. “This is terrible for me!“ the mayor says.
Now and again: From the export stop, he got to know through the media, no call from Berlin. Have been in the coalition agreement of the new Federal government that all approved armor would be processed orders. For 2018, jobs for 416 million euros, according to the Saudi had been approved by the Arabia.
“We accept the decision of Berlin. Point. But trust and consistent policy,” says Weigelt. The 18 boats would not change the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. And that they would be used for the naval blockade against Yemen, “shipbuilding technical nonsense”. The ships were made of aluminum. You should be quick to track pirate vessels. No combat ships, “give it a whack with a sledgehammer, is a hole in it!”, the mayor says.
The Federal government should buy the boats
In spite of all the setbacks Wolgast is – as here in many Places – a beautiful city
In mid-November, the mayor made with a brand letter to the members of the fate of his city to the national political issue. In the Parliament, there was now extra for such a debate. “On such debates, the populists are especially happy the most,” Weigler.
It surprised him how little the “old parties” in the matter, says Nicholas Kramer, AfD group Chairman in the Parliament, after the debate. There would be talk of Retraining, which went off-topic. “Here is, ultimately, made policy for the own party program and not for the citizen”, writes Kramer.
Not only the AfD, even in the case of the left party, there are a lot of public criticism. Barbara Syrbe was 17 years Chairman of the County Council here, she is now retired. “The rich Federal Republic of Germany can’t leave the Region hanging,” she says with a trembling voice. “Because the Region can’t help it that the Saudis will make war, and the policy must respond.”
Of arms exports to Saudi Arabia, the AfD, incidentally, consider also, not a lot, says Kramer. “All the more so by the Respect of contracts,” he adds. The Federal government had the duty and the ships should buy now. Otherwise, Wolgast would be the next “suspended” city in the Region.
Political apathy is so?
Lars Bergemann, from the Left, is since 1999 active in local politics. Of course, there is a split in his party, he says. In principle, we are against arms exports. But policy must also be pragmatic. “The people need their bread, their house loans can pay!” Of ideologies alone, no one will fill. Everywhere in the world, Germany would help. “And here?” Ex-member of Parliament for Syrbe asks. “Where are the Prime Minister or the Chancellor?”.
The mayor has now ensured that there will be crisis meetings. One in a few days, another is planned in Berlin. Then members of Parliament and ministries to discuss the situation.