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Germany Struggles With Two Terrible Weeks of Bad News
- Trouble at VW, Commerzbank shake up Europe’s biggest economy
- Populist surge in regional elections adds to uncertainty
The Volkswagen AG factory in Wolfsburg.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Germany muscled its way through the Covid-19 pandemic and managed to avoid a devastating industrial shutdown after Russia cut off its gas supplies. Still, it never fully allayed concerns that economic trouble might lie ahead. The past two weeks provided dramatic evidence that these fears were justified.
Elections in the eastern German states of Thuringia and Saxony at the beginning of the month saw support for populist parties surge, dealing a fresh blow to the governing coalition in Berlin and creating further uncertainty over Germany’s ability to attract investment.