Friedrich Merz accepted an invitation to the annual meeting of the Made for Germany capital association on Wednesday. There he promoted his vision of economic supremacy in Europe and promised further capital-friendly reforms.

On Wednesday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) attended the annual meeting of the Made for Germany initiative together with Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) and Economics Minister Katherina Reiche (CDU). TheInitiative founded in 2025is an association of German capitalists and CEOs from a wide range of industries. From Siemens to Bayer to Amazon and Mercedes, all well-known large corporations are on board.

Made for Germany sees itself as a link between business and politics. In this sense, it acts as an interest group for the largest German business groups. Their goal is to “promote a strong and sustainable economy”. The interests of German capital should be pooled and politics aligned accordingly.

Between power and PR

The most famous faces of the initiative include Deutsche Bank boss Christian Sewing, Roland Busch, the CEO of Siemens AG and Axel Springer boss Matthias Döpfner. The CEO of the communications consultancy FGS Global Alexander Geiser is considered a networker and mastermind. Since its founding, Made for Germany has doubled its members to more than 140 companies.

The initiative promotesto invest a total of 800 billion euros in Germany. Merz received great thanks for this. However, the majority of the investments were already planned before the initiative was founded, so they were not a result of the merger. Critics see this as an orchestrated PR event.

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European supremacy with German capital

Merz accepted the initiative's invitation and spent a whole day with the top German capital, including a tour of the trade fair in Hanover. In hisspeechthe CDU Chancellor once again emphasized his vision for the development of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The focus was always on thatEuropean beforeequestrian rolewhich, according to Merz, Germany should take. The Chancellor explained: “In this European Union, Germany must be the driving force, Germany must be the locomotive.”

But this requires technological progress, which Merz believes can be implemented quickly: "A year or two years ago, I would not have believed that we could still catch up in these central key technologies, such as storage technology, quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI), especially industrial AI. Today we know: we can do it, we want it."

Overall, a major focus of the Chancellor's speech is on artificial intelligence. Germany has a major locational advantage in the AI ​​sector, you just have to use it correctly. At the same time, he tries to appease critics and emphasizes the need to use AI safely: “It is up to us how we use AI responsibly in order to maintain and increase production, jobs and prosperity in our country.”

On Wednesday, the Chancellor primarily referred to economic developments. Nevertheless, there are also notes of the much-propagated German supremacy in this speech, which can also be heard at the military level.

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“Reforms” in favor of capital

In order to implement these options, however, “the federal government and our location conditions have to improve something,” said Merz. This refers to reforms that benefit large corporations and are intended to ensure higher profits. Some of these have already been implemented, but the Chancellor states: “It is not enough yet, we have to do more.”

Merz himself praised three such projects in his speech. We are about to pass “the most comprehensive reform of our health system”. He also made the planned reform of the pension system a topic and emphasized the major role that company and private pension schemes should play. Most recently, he also spoke about the income tax reform coming up in January, which is intended to provide relief.

What the Chancellor deliberately left out of his speech is the debate about working time regulations - the government coalition does not fully agree on this issue. At another point, however, he explained that there was “a lot of catching up to do” there. Under Merz, the CDU is insisting on an end to the eight-hour day and the introduction of a maximum working time per week. Under the guise of flexibility, he advocates a reform that, according to a proposal for shorter periods of time73.5 hour weekcould mean.

With this willingness to reform, Merz has met with open ears in the industry. Only recently, Mercedes boss Ola Källenius called for an abolition of the 35-hour week for metal workers and thusthree hours of unpaid overtime. Elsewhere, an association of industrial groups led by Siemens recently called for a radical oneReducing labor costsin Germany and thus massive cuts in social benefits. Siemens bossRoland Buschwas also prominently represented at the meeting on Wednesday.

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