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Federal government to help indebted municipalities – bill to be presented to cabinet on Wednesday
The federal government plans to provide financial support to municipalities burdened with excessive debt. The Federal Cabinet is expected to approve a draft law on Wednesday that will allocate approximately one billion euros annually to cash-strapped cities and towns, the Federal Ministry of Finance announced on Tuesday. The support is limited to the period until…
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Betz International insolvent – high diesel prices hit freight forwarding company with 140 employees
Betz International GmbH, based in Sonnenbühl, Baden-Württemberg, has filed for insolvency. The responsible district court in Tübingen initiated proceedings on April 7, 2026, and appointed attorney Dirk Poff as the provisional insolvency administrator. According to sources close to the company, the financial difficulties were primarily caused by high diesel prices, fierce competition, low profit margins,…
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Opel is cutting jobs again – Stellantis is intensifying its cost-cutting measures in Rüsselsheim
At the Opel plant in Rüsselsheim, Germany, automaker Stellantis is facing further massive job cuts, while its parent company intensifies its cost-cutting strategy. Current plans call for further job losses as part of a comprehensive corporate restructuring. The trigger is the ongoing cost pressure in the automotive industry, coupled with the significant investments required for…
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China is expanding the world’s largest LNG storage facilities to secure supply
Over the past decade, China has massively expanded its natural gas reserves in Yancheng and other coastal locations, creating the world’s largest above-ground LNG storage facilities. The current backdrop is the crisis in the Middle East, as the Strait of Hormuz was effectively blocked for five and a half weeks following the initial US-Israeli attacks…
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VW discontinues ID.4 production in the USA
Volkswagen will end production of its ID.4 electric SUV at its Chattanooga plant in Tennessee this month, reacting to the weak US market for electric vehicles. According to the company, the move is due to a challenging environment, further exacerbated by the elimination of a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. At the same time,…
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IW Director Hüther: A €1,000 energy bonus could cost €12 billion
Economic experts are largely skeptical of the coalition’s decisions to relieve consumers of high energy costs. Michael Hüther, president of the German Economic Institute (IW), warned in the newspaper “Die Welt” of potential losses in tax and social security contributions amounting to twelve billion euros due to the possibility, planned by the CDU/CSU and SPD,…
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Massive depreciation – new electric cars lose up to 70 percent of their value in three years
Anyone buying a new electric car in Germany currently faces a significantly higher risk of depreciation than someone buying a comparable combustion engine vehicle. This is the finding of an analysis by the online used car platform Carvago, based on a large data set of German listings. Ten pairs of similar electric cars and combustion…
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France withdraws gold from the US – dispute with Trump over Iran exacerbates mistrust
France withdrew 129 tons of gold from New York, recast it into new bars between July 2025 and January 2026, and thus realized a book profit of approximately €12.8 billion. While the total reserves remained constant at around 2,437 tons, the gold, converted into marketable standard bars, is now located in Paris. The Banque de…
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Oettinger Brewery relocates its international business to Switzerland
The Oettinger Group, based in Oettingen, Bavaria, has been pursuing a profound corporate restructuring since 2023, reorganizing its international business through a new company in the Swiss canton of Zug. This move is driven by the sharp decline in the beer market, falling sales in Germany, and the goal of generating a significantly larger share…
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Energy tax on fuel is supposed to decrease – government hesitates for weeks and delivers only minimal relief
Following an extraordinary coalition committee meeting at Villa Borsig, the German government announced a temporary reduction in the energy tax on gasoline and diesel. The trigger was a sharp rise in fuel prices, which the coalition primarily attributes to the war in Iran, while the real reasons lie deeper, in high taxes, politically inflated energy…
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Petrol price protests in Ireland: Government decides on further tax cuts
Following sometimes violent protests against high fuel prices in Ireland, the government has decided on a further reduction in petrol and diesel taxes. “We have heard you,” Prime Minister Micheál Martin and his deputy Simon Harris declared at a joint press conference on Sunday, addressing the demonstrators. The government had also put together a further…
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The government promises reforms – but the wave of company closures continues unabated
In Germany, 4,573 partnerships and corporations filed for insolvency in the first quarter of this year, the highest number since the third quarter of 2005. The Leibniz Institute for Economic Research Halle also reported a particularly sharp increase in March. The figure was 71 percent higher than the average for March between 2016 and 2019,…
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Wind power company Vestas is cutting 440 jobs in Denmark
Vestas is cutting around 440 jobs at its Lindø site on the island of Funen and aims to complete the reductions in Denmark by mid-2026. The cuts primarily affect the production of offshore hub houses for the V236-15.0 MW model. The reasons for the cuts are faster production processes, coupled with increasing pressure on margins…
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Clearing despite legal action: Wind farm near Hermannsdenkmal alters cultural landscape
Clearing work for a controversial wind farm began in the Teutoburg Forest at the beginning of April. The project is located near the Externsteine rock formation, the Berlebeck Eagle Sanctuary, and the Hermann Monument. It thus encroaches upon one of the most well-known landscapes in East Westphalia. The trigger was a permit already granted for…
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Ireland: Protests against high fuel prices escalate – military to break up blockades
Protests against high fuel prices in Ireland reached a new level of escalation in early April 2026. In Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Foynes, demonstrators blocked fuel depots, major roads, and the country’s only refinery. The government is considering deploying the military to support the police in clearing the blockades. The trigger was a sharp increase…