On the 8th, something unbelievable happened at the Berlin Airport in Germany.
Passengers who departed from Frankfurt Airport on a Lufthansa plane and arrived at Berlin Airport at 1:06 p.m. that day were not able to collect their luggage until about two hours later.
What is even more incomprehensible
is that the Lufthansa airline passengers who arrived 11 minutes late from Munich did so after collecting all their baggage at the baggage counter in question.
The German passengers seemed to accept it as if it were any other business. It is impossible to confirm whether they are trying hard to persevere or are completely resigned.
However, overseas travelers experiencing this for the first time expressed their anger, saying that no one at the airport was trying to solve the problem.
A Korean traveler said, “I heard that a friend who arrived at Berlin Airport three days ago is still unable to find his luggage and has not even been able to change his underwear properly.”
The problem is that this situation happening in Germany is not something that happened yesterday or today.
“The Ukrainian train arrived on time even during the bombing, but the German train was not only delayed but also had to get off in the middle of the night.” This is part of a post by
Ukrainian writer Stanislav Aseyev on social media ( SNS ) X (formerly Twitter) in August. . In this article written with a link to the German state-run railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) account, he said, “I was taking my mother out of Kiiu, the capital, on the day Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. Even though everything around me was on fire and engulfed in smoke, the train was still there
. ” “I arrived on time,” he said. “But I took a long-distance train from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Hamburg, Germany, and it came 1 hour and 30 minutes late and suddenly told me to get off near the German border, so I spent the night on the street. I’ve never seen a railroad company more rude to passengers.” He wrote:
This article received approximately 1.1 million views.
In one case, Germany suffered the embarrassment of Foreign Minister Annalena Verebock canceling her visit to Australia after failing to properly resolve the malfunction of its official aircraft.
There is an analysis that Germany has once again fallen into the ‘sick man of Europe’ as it did 25 years ago.
The Economist recently reported that Germany, which enjoyed a golden age through a series of reforms in the early 2000s, has fallen into a latecomer to growth. Citing the International Monetary Fund ( IMF
) , the report predicted that Europe could be the only country in the world whose economy could shrink this year, and that Germany in particular could grow more slowly than the United States, Britain, France, and Spain over the next five years. Germany’s fall is also a shadow of its success. In the early 2000s, Germany emerged as a leader in the European Union (EU) under Merkel’s government after Chancellor Gerhard Schröder succeeded in the so-called ‘Harz reforms’ centered on labor and pension reforms . It also stood out in exports based on its world-class manufacturing technology. The Economist pointed out, “Over the next few years, Germany achieved outstanding performance in old industries, but lacked investment in new industries.” The obsession with fiscal soundness led to excessively low investment in the public sector, as well as in the railroads and federal military. In particular, the ratio of information technology ( IT ) investment to gross domestic product ( GDP ) is less than half that of the United States and France. Bureaucratic conservatism is also an obstacle. It takes an average of 130 days to obtain a license to operate a business, which is twice the OECD average.
The geopolitical crisis is the root of the crisis facing Germany. This is because Germany is the most dependent on China among major Western economies. Last year, trade between the two countries reached $314 billion.
However, in China, German car brands are losing out in the market share battle with Chinese rivals. As the West pursues ‘de-risking’ its relations with China메이저놀이터, relations may be completely severed in some sensitive areas, such as key minerals. Governments around the world are pouring in subsidies to strengthen advanced manufacturing and supply chains, which threatens German companies that have enjoyed a comparative advantage based on their extensive supply chains.
Energy transition also adds to Germany’s difficulties. Germany’s industrial sector is the largest energy consumer in Europe but can no longer rely on cheap Russian natural gas. Lack of investment in the power grid and a slow permitting system are hindering the transition to renewable energy and could make manufacturers less competitive, the economist said.
The problem is that, unlike the Schröder coalition government in the 1990s, it is difficult for the political world to easily initiate reforms. The current government, comprised of the Social Democratic Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Green Party, is having difficulty agreeing on a solution due to severe divisions within the coalition government. In addition, as the far-right party ‘Alternative for Germany’ recorded a 20% approval rating nationwide and is likely to win some state elections next year, existing political parties are maintaining a more passive attitude toward radical change.
Germany’s slump has significant implications for the Korean economy. This is because the economic structures of Germany and Korea are similar. It is pointed out that Korea may also fall into a recession like Germany.
Like Germany, Korea’s manufacturing-oriented industrial structure has continued along with the growth of the Chinese economy over the past 20 years. It is also similar in that most of them are traditional manufacturing industries, not high-tech manufacturing industries. The labor market is also showing a steep aging trend. Although employment has recently been stable, the elderly population is driving the increase in labor supply, which is assessed to be similar to the situation in Germany since the mid-2000s. This is understood to mean that, about 15 years later, a drastic labor shortage similar to that currently experienced in Germany may appear in Korea.
Experts emphasize that Ulsan, a manufacturing city, also needs such a response strategy. There are many indications that policy measures should be prepared to increase the productivity of high-tech industries based on high-skilled workers and to attract foreign workers.