It's frustrating. Following the collapse of the traffic light (Ampel) coalition government at the beginning of November, each of the parties has now announced an „economic election campaign“. After all, one of the key tasks of the future government will be to quickly do something about the structural problems facing Germany as a business location. However, reform concepts for more growth are no longer being discussed publicly. Robert Habeck's initiative to finance health insurance funds (Social Security contributions on investment income) was one of the few new ideas. Still, it did not help, and was rightly dismissed.

How are tax cuts for companies, or a reform of electricity grid network charges, to be financed? Which pension reform will do justice to demographic change? What room for manoeuvre does a federal government still have when it comes to reducing bureaucracy? Such issues hardly ever come up in election campaigns. It was therefore important that the business community has now sounded the alarm once again to put the location crisis back where it belongs – right at the top of the political agenda. Without better framework conditions for more growth, no governing coalition will be able to launch an infrastructure offensive, the green transformation will stall, and Germany's future as an industrialised country is likely to be increasingly in doubt.

Ampel-bashing by the business associations is only of limited help here. This is because the structural problems of the German economy go back a long way. There has been no growth since 2018. The underfunding of infrastructure has been going on for much longer. Bureaucratic costs have been driven by Brussels in particular for a decade. Added to this is the new geopolitical framework, to which no one has yet found a good answer. Cheap gas from Russia, for exports to China, under the security umbrella of the USA? Such a business model has long since come to an end. This should also be discussed more in the election campaign, for example about the challenges for the future defence budget.

The EU Commission has already begun to focus more strongly on the competitiveness of the economy. Whether this will succeed remains to be seen. However, it would be good if the new German government were to support this path, and exert more influence again with a harmonised European policy.