Death Of Europe's Industrial Base: VW CEO Set To Announce 50,000 Job Cuts

Europe's industrial demise has become impossible to ignore. The continent's automotive manufacturing base is being hollowed out by high energy costs, regulatory pressure, and a flood of cheap Chinese electric vehicles, with Germany, once Europe's industrial powerhouse, emerging as the epicenter of this terrible decline.

Germany's largest manufacturer by revenue is Volkswagen Group, whose CEO, Oliver Blume, is warning employees that the coming weeks will be critical as Europe's largest automaker prepares to detail the most extensive restructuring in its history.

"The next few weeks will be crucial: everyone must pull together," he told local outlet Bild am Sonntag. "We have drawn up the largest transformation plan in the history of the Volkswagen Group."

The upcoming meetings, scheduled for next week, are expected to provide employees and union representatives with new details about the plan to shed 50,000 jobs.

"The next few years will be decisive in determining who stays in the race and who comes out on top," Blume said, pointing to massive pressure to slash costs, fundamental shifts in the market, and global turmoil.

Blume warned, "The global car industry is in the midst of a massive crisis. And the Volkswagen Group is right in the thick of it. Geopolitics, trade barriers, regulation, weak markets and fierce competition are all taking their toll."

Christiane Benner, deputy chairwoman of VW's supervisory board and head of Germany's IG Metall union, told local outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Blume's plan to cut 50,000 jobs is a "hard provocation," adding that trust in management is severely "strained."

Meanwhile, Volkswagen is holding "concrete negotiations" with Chinese automakers about assembling their vehicles at German factories, Benner said. Such deals could help protect domestic jobs and improve plant utilization, though she cautioned that they would represent only a "complementary measure" rather than a comprehensive solution.

Talks aimed at securing the future of VW's Osnabrück plant are also progressing, according to Benner, who added that Qatar blocked a potential agreement involving Israeli defense contractor Rafael to convert a civilian production line to military production.

Whether the issue is the death of a industrial base, the Third World invasion of Europe, or disastrous green and energy policies that have sent energy prices through the roof, Brussels' terrible decisions are, as Nomura analyst Andrzej Szczepaniak described, "seeding political change" that will push the continent "toward more populism."