_ Dr. Frank Grobe, banker, member of the Hessian state parliament; Andreas Lichert, business consultant, member of the the Hessian state parliament. Wiesbaden, 20. October 2021.
Introduction
2020 will certainly go down in history as the “Corona year”. Because Corona and above all the anti-Corona measures have left a noticeable impact on social and economic development in Germany and the world. The state measures in particular brought many to ruin, but also created profiteers from this “new normal”. You can find out what the “new normal” means in this analytical note.
Corona is much more than a health policy challenge. Above all, it is a fig leaf for breaking taboos and laws. However, this is not primarily about the drastic curtailment of civil rights and freedoms, but about a new economic and financial policy that could never be implemented under normal circumstances.
The most important turning point from a German point of view is the lifting of all debt brakes and, above all, the final entry into the debt and transfer union in the EU. The euphemistically so-called EU reconstruction fund “Next Generation EU” is nothing else, which for the first time links borrowing by the EU itself with non-repayable grants to the recipient countries. Ultimately, all dams are broken.
By Brexit at the latest, the comparatively economical and economically more successful “northern curve” (Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Finland, Austria) of the EU is in strategic minority position compared to the southern recipient countries of the “Club Med” (France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain). The corrections to the relationship between loans and grants due to the resistance of the “thrifty four” (Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria) should not hide this. It is – of course – a renewed breach of primary law of the EU, namely Art. 310 TFEU1, which is intended to prevent this direct debt of the EU. The transfer union thus joins the constant breaches of law resulting from political opportunities, see Art. 125 AUEV2 “No-Bailout Clause” or Art. 123 TFEU3 “Ban on ECB state financing and bond purchases”.[1]
This analytical note will present current political decisions in the current context and the concrete political and legislative measures and consider the effects on German citizens and companies. The dangers for the social market economy and our freedom are very real.
Precursors and history
For some years now, former Chancellor Angela Merkel has often spoken of a “great transformation”. A concept that the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) reactivated in 2011 with the publication of a “Social Contract [s] for a Great Transformation.”[2],[3] This is the “new normal” that will radically change not only Germany, but the whole world.
Interestingly, the German mainstream media take up this only marginally, and when they do, they do not question the background and effects on the German community, the social market economy, our free basic order, and our people. Why, it quickly becomes clear, because it is – as Merkel said at the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum on January 23, 2020 in Davos – about “transformations of gigantic, historical proportions. This transformation basically means leaving the entire way of doing business and life, as we have got used to it in the industrial age, over the next 30 years (…) and to come to completely new forms of value creation.”[4],[5]
What new forms of value creation are has been known since the book “The Great Reset” by Klaus Schwab the founder of the “World Economic Forum” (WEF) – an annual meeting of billionaires and decision-makers in Davos, with the active participation of the largest and most important companies in the world (including ABN Amro, Allianz, Apple, BASF, Blackrock, Citi Bank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Facebook, Generali, Google, Honda, HSBC, Hyundai, JPMorgan, LVMH, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Nestlé, Novartis, Paypal, Pfizer, Roche, Soros Fund Management, Sony, Swiss Re, Unilever, Visa, Volkswagen, Western Union).[6] Participants are also the so-called “civil society”, that is above all green-left non-governmental organizations that have been trying to bring about a change in the system for years.[7]
For a decade, Schwab and a detached (supposed) world elite have been thinking about how they could best solve the self-inflicted “euro, debt and confidence crisis” for their clientele. Because among this “elite” there is the fear that a further uncontrolled increase in the world population from currently almost eight to eleven billion people in the year 2100 could result in social unrest due to social inequalities.
They see the solution in turning away from the model of the free-market economy that has so far prevailed in the West, in favour of the Chinese model of the (socialist) controlled state economy. For the common German citizen to accept this, this transformation is disguised with green symbolic politics (migration, environmental protection, sustainability) and as an allegedly benevolent cause.[8]
For Germany this means the end of the social market economy and the transition to a quasi-planned economy model in which people only have to function. A goal that was tackled at the 2021 Davos conference in Singapore.[9],[10]
And Corona is just the right pretext for that. Because through the “climate of fear” created by the so-called corona pandemic, the desired goals such as “sustainability”, “equality” and alleged “justice” can be implemented more easily globally. In the end there is a new, globally harmonized society in which the nation states have ceased to exist, and the individual has been detached from the traditions and roots of his respective peoples. What remains is the desired soulless, politically compliant consumer instead of the enlightened, self-confident, and critical citizen.[11]
It is therefore not surprising that this change is supported by notable German protagonists. Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble said that “the Corona crisis is a great opportunity. Resistance to change becomes less in times of crisis. We can now manage the economic and financial union, which we have not yet achieved politically.”[12]
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen went even further and said that “for the fight against [the corona pandemic] part of the sovereignty had to be given up for the community [i.e. the EU, i. Author]. It is also the chance to consciously bring about change.”[13]
Now some might argue that this interpretation is a conspiracy theory that is spread by “right-wing populists”, “Corona deniers” or “aluminium hat wearers” in order to stir up fears and divide the society. But far from it. The World Economic Forum and the German Klaus Schwab deal with these demands openly and proactively by means of books, articles and on the WEF website.[14]
Schwab formulates the planned total change in our everyday reality in drastic terms: During the post-crisis period, Klaus Schwab wrote: “Many of us wonder when we will return to normality. The short answer is: never. Nothing will ever return to the broken feeling of normalcy.”[15]
Schwab sees himself as one of the “enlightened leaders” who show people the way to a new world order. However, this can only work if the people allow increased surveillance and controls as in China. [16]Schwab and his WEF seem to have succumbed to a power frenzy. There is no other explanation for their titanic hubris.
Critics, on the other hand, have to expect that, as in China, they will be excluded from participation and discriminated against by a points system (social credit system). Economists from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) are calling for financial repression for the insubordinate. This means that the lending should be decided according to politically “good” behaviour – which is assessed by means of an internet footprint (biometric). And this is where Schwab comes into play again, who proposes artificial intelligence (algorithms) or digital transformation to regulate private and social life in the future and sees a “new world emerging”. In doing so, he undermines the private sphere of citizens and thus the constitutionally guaranteed right to life and physical integrity (Article 2 of the Basic Law), since the citizen becomes transparent and thus ultimately unfree.[17],[18],[19]
What is reminiscent of a dystopia of total surveillance by George Orwell is ultimately about to become a reality.
By continuing to play with the population’s fear that Corona / Covid-19 is life-threatening for all age groups, there should be no return to the old normal. And that, although there is not much excess mortality in Germany compared to previous years and the omnipresent fear is largely unfounded. A view that Klaus Schwab himself takes in his book. If one looks at the deaths in Germany, one finds that predominantly people over the age of 70 die with or from the corona virus. That was over 88 percent of the corona deaths in 2020.[20]
EU taxonomy – eco-planned economy through the back door
The related and similar political initiatives mentioned are currently taking place at the multilateral level. From a European perspective, the activities of the European Union are, of course, the most important, as they have direct legal effects in the member states when appropriately designed as ordinances – of course without the national parliaments having an effective say.
Since Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) took office, there has been a lot of talk about the EU18’s “Green Deal”.[21] The ultimate promise of salvation of so-called “climate protection”, sustainability and social, i.e., “inclusive” and “fair” participation should be achieved.
In view of the general climate hysteria, Fridays for Future demonstrations, and the megatrend of “green washing” in industry and on the financial markets, this could be dismissed as a PR campaign in line with the spirit of the times.
That would be a fatal misjudgement, however, because for years there have been concrete steps to implement a regulatory framework that is focused on – however understood – “sustainability” in the form of the deliberately cryptically named “EU taxonomy”.
Even if the roots go back at least to the time of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, things got serious in March 2018 with the publication of an action plan “Sustainable Finance” by the EU Commission.[22] This was preceded by a high-level expert working group (in EU jargon Technical Expert Group – TEG), which delivered its final report and recommendations on January 31, 2018. On April 15, 2020, the draft of the EU Commission based on this and further developed was adopted by the Council of the EU, ratified by the EU Parliament on June 18, 2020, and has been valid since July 12, 2020.[23]
Targets of the taxonomy
The objectives of the EU taxonomy are as follows:
- climate protection,
- adaptation to climate change,
- sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources,
- transition to a circular economy,
- avoidance and reduction of environmental pollution,
- protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.
Of course, “climate protection” comes first, but the other, more nature conservation-oriented goals are generally compatible today and will therefore also find approval beyond the hard core of the “climate apostles”. That gives the whole thing a positive appearance and many will be satisfied with that.
While these goals have already been formulated many times, the point of the taxonomy is the implementation itself. Not taken is the usual path of detailed catalogue of regulations prescribed for citizens and companies, but a comprehensive regulatory framework is created that initially attracts companies, later compels them in the long-term forces to submit to the standards of “sustainability” if they still want to have a future in the countries of the EU.
In the future, all economic activities will be classified in a classification scheme and evaluated in a way that is comparable to a bonus-malus rule. Even if the measures are currently being introduced under the banner of sustainability, the resulting system is “agnostic” and could also be developed in any other direction, for example in the direction of more “diversity”, preference for minorities or social goals.
The state is given the ultimate instrument for economic control so that it can and should intervene in the decision-making autonomy of companies. The resulting risks require a more intensive study of the planned mechanisms and their expected effects.
Measures and requirements for companies
The regulation of the EU taxonomy includes the following measures:
- a uniform classification system for sustainable financial and economic activities – the taxonomy,
- the creation of an EU label for “green financial products”,
- an obligation for asset managers and institutional investors to consider the criterion of sustainability in investment processes,
- the requirement for insurance companies and investment firms to advise their customers according to sustainability preferences,
- integrating sustainability into the prudential rules of banks and insurance companies.
- greater transparency of company balance sheets and reporting obligations for non-financial information, analogous to the CSR guideline (corporate social responsibility).[24]
The latter aspect in particular indicates that practically all large companies, e.g. Lufthansa, Rewe, Deutsche Bahn, Fraport, Deutsche Post, Commerzbank, Telekom, Opel, Rhön-Klinikum, DZ Bank, Deutsche Bank, Merck, WISAG or Braun – subject to this reporting obligation, because the CSR guideline not only affects all capital market-oriented companies, credit institutions and insurance companies, but also companies with more than 500 employees, annual sales of more than EUR 40 million or total assets of more than EUR 20 million. This means that even larger medium-sized companies can very quickly fall under the requirements of the CSR and taxonomy guidelines.
In addition to the direct reporting obligation of large companies, the secondary and second-round effects of the directive are likely to be decisive, especially in Germany with its strongly medium-sized economic structure. On the one hand, the reporting companies will indirectly subject their suppliers and service providers to the same criteria. Even if the suppliers themselves are not subject to a corresponding reporting obligation, sooner or later it will become a question of survival to initially differentiate oneself positively from the competition through one’s own reporting or certification in terms of sustainability and to make it “buyable” in the long term. In the long term, this effect even occurs as a “third-round effect” for suppliers and service providers of non-reporting companies, and it is precisely this incentive mechanism that is wanted.
The second main distribution mechanism of the taxonomy is through corporate financing. Since credit institutions and insurance companies, as typical providers of debt capital, are directly subject to the taxonomy, they will also impose sustainability criteria on their borrowers in the future. In the first step, this will presumably have an impact on the credit conditions, in that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) below the thresholds for direct taxonomy regulation are “motivated” to increase the “sustainability components” of their business through interest rate reductions. This has been happening for a long time in the form of a variety of promotional loans for certain technologies or the achievement of savings targets. However, since the interest rate spread – and thus the incentive – is relatively small in the age of low interest rates, it will very quickly not be about the price of the credit, but about the availability of the credit in general.
If credit institutions themselves are measured by the sustainability of their loan book, they will reject unsustainable companies as borrowers or at least charge them with significantly higher interest rates and costs. This is all the truer because promotional loans also with private banks – many of which have their parent companies in Germany – make up an ever-larger part of the business and are by no means reserved for the public banking sector. The shrinking interest margins due to the phase of low interest rates, regulatory costs, and additional competitive pressure from FinTechs reinforce this trend. Even without the expected wave of insolvencies, bank balance sheets are fragile, and banks are forced to become hurriedly obedient.
Through the explicit inclusion of asset managers and institutional investors, every investor who pursues old-age provision through life insurance or funds also becomes part of this system, as his investment capital must also be invested according to these criteria. Only private investors who invest themselves and directly in stocks and bonds can evade the requirements and form “independent capital”. Since the entire regulatory framework aims to promote the “good” and discriminate against the “bad”, more sustainability – or better said clinging to the taxonomy and implementing the rules as comprehensively as possible – will lead to greater economic success thereby also attracting independent capital.
What as an incentive mechanism per se has a certain logic and a high probability of success, remains a frontal attack on the social market economy and our free economic order.
Entire industries and branches of industry will find it more difficult to market their products and services and at the same time must bear higher financing costs. If they can easily be substituted with “green alternatives”, they will perish and that is exactly the aim of the whole thing. If they are not substitutable, the companies will pass their higher costs on to the customers and they will also be asked to pay for the sustainability regulation.
A decade for implementation
The introduction of the taxonomy will be a long-term process and the final expansion will probably not be achieved until the end of the decade – in line with the target date of the UN Agenda 2030 and its 17 goals for sustainable development.[25] However, the first implementation measures will take effect from 2022 and oblige the companies directly affected to a “non-financial reporting” and to qualitative statements about their “sustainability”.
Relevant law firms, auditors, software manufacturers etc. are already rubbing their hands together because they can expect an economic stimulus program for their services – of course without this having a measurable positive effect on the environment.
After this first introductory phase, the next stage is likely to be ignited and a “quantification of sustainability” will take place. Even if the specific design of this classification is still unclear, every product and service is classified and rated on a sustainability scale. The creativity and wisdom of the Brussels bureaucrats and technocrats is particularly in demand here, and one can assume that an army of selfless and undoubtedly qualified eco-lobbyists will be happy to provide support. It remains to be seen whether there will be one or more “scoring schemes” or whether a “CO2 footprint” will be decisive.
However, it is highly probable that such a quantification will come because it forms the decisive precondition for tougher regulation including financial bonus and malus regulations for companies. Rising threshold values for the shares of sustainable intermediate consumption and falling maximum values for non-sustainable intermediate consumption are likely to be expected.
Why not link the tax rate to the carbon footprint of an average company turnover in euros? Or “motivate” the below-average sustainable companies in an industry with fines? Different sales tax classes depending on the sustainability category. There are hardly any limits to the imagination.
From today’s perspective, all of this seems hard to imagine and neither theoretically nor practically feasible, but shouldn’t the year 2020 and the anti-corona measures teach us that yesterday’s impossibility can be the “new normal” of tomorrow?
In the coming years, the EU taxonomy regulation will definitely lay the foundation to make some of the scenarios outlined quite feasible and thus to establish the instruments of a de facto planned economy. Whether and to what extent this happens depends largely on the level of organization and the success of the political resistance against it. In order to increase this resistance, we dare to look at the expected effects.
Economic and welfare effects
The mechanisms of action are based on a triad of mandatory reporting, equity and debt capital supply for companies. Even without a conscious and politically desired increase in the cost of capital, these additional and non-value-adding expenses lead to rising costs. This is bad news, especially for credit institutions and other financial intermediaries, because Europe’s – but above all the German – banks are already groaning under the costs of regulation, the sense and purpose of which can hardly be understood, since the crucial transmission belt of the euro debt crisis is the amalgamation of national debts and bank balance sheets was.
Exactly this wrong regulation in the form of the zero-weighting privilege of euro national debts in the equity capital of the banks was “wisely” not touched in order not to endanger the symbiosis of big banks and governments.
These costs will have to be paid by citizens in one way or another, be it higher interest, fees or taxes. The higher costs for businesses are also passed on to consumers. By definition, higher costs for the same services are a loss of productivity.
These costs, which are increasing across the board, are – outside of the small circles of profiteers – not countered by any increasing income. This regulation is thus a program to reduce demand and thus income and prosperity for a great many people.
These income losses hit the low-wage earners particularly hard, i.e., the same groups that are already buffeted by the rise in indirect taxes due to the CO2 levy, rising rents and ancillary housing costs as well as rising unemployment.
The social imbalance of an ill-conceived and ideologically led crusade for more sustainability cannot be emphasized enough. For example, if one looks at the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), it is not only an economic disaster, because it brought Germany the highest electricity prices in the industrialized world without need, but it also represents a “redistribution from the bottom up”. While high earners can benefit from the EEG through appropriate investments, low earners suffer from rising electricity prices and in this way subsidize the profits of high earners.
A second impressive example is car traffic. Politicians and lobbyists have pushed through that only locally emission-free electric vehicles are emission-free, although serious studies show that diesel vehicles in many cases have a better CO2 balance than electric vehicles if the German electricity mix is used considered. Sustainable and noticeable CO2 savings through electromobility only become apparent with high mileage per year, which, however, is very unlikely with e-mobiles due to the charging and range problems. For the foreseeable future, e-mobiles will remain commuter and short-haul vehicles.[26]
In order to put an end to the combustion engine nonetheless, the Euro 7 standard has increased the requirements so high that they can practically not be met. Should industry and engineers nevertheless find a way, one thing will definitely be achieved: Individual mobility by car will become much more expensive and increasingly a privilege of the wealthy and the “better-subsidized”. It is precisely those who suffer from the sharp rise in rents in and around large cities who are often dependent on the car because they have to move to the surrounding area with poorer local transport connections. They in particular cannot afford new vehicles and therefore do not benefit at all from the billions in funding – the automotive industry, on the other hand, can.
However, this is not only anti-social, but also counterproductive in terms of environmental policy, because the rejuvenation of the fleet is crucial for lower overall emissions from traffic. This leads to lower CO2 and, above all, pollutant emissions, and that should be the goal of any targeted environmental policy.
While the smashing of Opel was perhaps still a company-specific individual fate, VW and Conti are definitely victims of an anti-car policy that is becoming more and more widespread. Nevertheless, the economic damage caused by looking at the car manufacturers themselves is by no means correctly captured. In fact, it can be assumed that automakers are relatively indifferent to whether they sell cars with internal combustion engines or with electric motors. Much more important than the manufacturers are the many medium-sized suppliers who are much more focused on specific technologies and cannot under any circumstances switch to completely different drive concepts at short notice.
If the big breakthrough in the direction of electromobility is actually bought and enforced by politics, it will not only cost hundreds of thousands of highly qualified and well-paid jobs in Germany, but it would also lead to an ecological catastrophe in the countries of origin of the battery raw materials. However, this is not something one can imagine when seeing a chic electric vehicle and is therefore easily and happily forgotten. Instead, it is now considered ecological to drive a 2.5 t electric SUV to the discounter to buy organic vegetables from China. Obviously, facts play a subordinate role as long as it feels good.
Another scenario is to be expected anyway: Individual traffic is to be drastically minimized. Development plans in recent years in the cities show increasingly fewer parking spaces, no charging infrastructure is provided, and public road space is being reduced in favour of bicycle and pedestrian traffic. So, we are dealing with the fairy tale of “electromobility for everyone” that is served to us in order to accept the total restructuring and restriction of mobility.
This excursus into transport policy not only describes specific risks and effects for Germany but is also intended to illustrate the susceptibility of bureaucratic economic management to ideological aberrations. If – as in the cases described – with relatively narrowly defined political course-setting with great importance and relevance for the public, every environmental and economic policy rationality is overridden, how much more likely is it with such a comprehensive and complex regulatory framework as the taxonomy?
Due to this complexity, it is practically impossible that sufficient public awareness arises, or reporting takes place before the relevant regulations become effective. Then the child has already fallen into the well and a subsequent change is difficult.
Germany is an important financial centre and – at least since BREXIT – one of the most important within the EU. Conversely, this means that any serious changes to the EU regulatory framework for the financial sector are also and especially for Germany of great importance.
As described, the tighter regulation threatens additional expenses in the operational business of the credit institutions, but also on the part of the borrowers. How high these are cannot yet be estimated, as they depend on the specific design, which is not to be published until later this year.
A third aspect also has to do indirectly with Germany, namely as the seat of the European Central Bank. Under Christine Lagarde, the ECB – far beyond its mandate – has expressed an interest in investing in “green bonds” in order to make a contribution to climate protection. Green bonds are nothing new, but so far, they are still a small part of the total volume. One of the reasons for this is that the “green bonds” must always be related to specific “green investment objects”, i.e., they must not be used for general corporate financing.
If, thanks to the taxonomy, sustainable companies were to be “greened” in their entirety, the addressable bond volume would multiply. This is the mechanism by which the supply of borrowed capital to large companies and stock corporations with their own bond issues is subject to the same incentives as medium-sized companies that are dependent on bank loans.
Conclusion
The “Great Reset” and EU taxonomy are two sides of the same coin.
While the “Great Reset” – largely unnoticed or, better yet, “unreported” by the German media – has powerful advocates such as Ursula von der Leyen, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Prince Charles and many others, the EU taxonomy is an important instrument for its implementation.
The EU can be seen in many ways as a test laboratory for the “one world” ideology, because nowhere in the world have so many nation states carried out such a large transfer of sovereignty, the separation of powers so undermined and the voices of their citizens, i.e., the sovereign, devalued in this way. Should the EU exist long enough for the EU taxonomy to take full effect, this is the blueprint for further economic areas.
The talked about “climate crisis” was obviously not crisis enough to bring about the “Great Reset”, which tries to dissolve the basic and legal system based on freedom, with the help of the formula of “no alternative”. It is about restricting the rights of the citizens and nothing less than the installation of a global oligarchy that is beyond the accountability of parliaments close to the people.
To achieve this, a less abstract fear scenario is needed. A scenario that not only includes concern for one’s own health and that of family members and friends, but a scenario that at the same time threatens the existential existence of millions of citizens. From the citizens’ point of view, it is not the time for fundamental regulatory discussions. They act rationally when they are primarily concerned about their short-term well-being and put aside the questions that arise, for example who should pay off long-term debt.
The “big transformers” find support in the media. These condition the citizens daily with horror reports and create a climate of fear. A fear that overwhelms people and even promotes the acceptance of restrictions on fundamental rights. As is so often the case, the media revel in the fine words of those in favour of the “Great Reset” and question neither the background nor the actual and objective success of the already known measures to “improve the green world”.
At the latest in the final stage, the taxonomy provides an instrument that can be described without exaggeration as state economic control and thus represents a de facto planned economy that is supposed to unite the ecological and the social. But just as socialism was not social, as a result this “eco-socialism” will neither be social nor ecological.
Whether and how long “eco” plays a role in this planned economy is pure speculation, because just as authentic ecology is not relevant today, it will be in the future under much worse economic conditions. In view of the real experiences with pseudo-ecology “á la green” one must rather assume that ecology is a Trojan horse in order to market old left-ideological wine in new green bottles.
But a transformation towards a global planned economy will not improve people’s lives. All attempts to establish socialist societies ended in chaos and bloodshed – mostly the blood of innocent people. The reason for this failure is simple: Everyone needs identification and tradition, because then – and only then – will they be ready to show real solidarity and mercy. And that was and is the glue of every community that wants to be more than society.
In addition, global problems can be solved more easily by sovereign individual states than by a “world government”. Subsidiarity was rightly an important pillar of the earlier successes of European integration. The word hardly appears in more recent documents. This can be seen on a small scale using the example of the provision of vaccination doses against the corona virus. Unlike the bureaucratic monster EU, the USA, Great Britain and Israel were able to order sufficient vaccine doses for their peoples.
Economic freedom in particular enables self-determination, promotes creativity and productivity, the development of an enlightened and politically responsible middle class as well as a self-confident bourgeoisie.
It was the free-market economy that freed billions of people in our world from poverty and political bondage.
Equalizing socialism, however, always led to impoverishment.
Property and education have always been the characteristics of the middle class. The battle cry of the “Great Reset”, however, is: “You will not own anything and be happy!”[27]
We are all entering a phase of important decisions and fundamental decisions. We have confidence in the judgment of the citizens of our country and continent, but they must know the facts, opportunities, and risks. This analytical note aims to contribute to this.
There is always an alternative.
Notes
[1] EU. Vertrag über die Arbeitsweise der Europäischen Union (1958). Rom. URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12012E/TXT:de:PDF
[2] WBGU (2011). Welt im Wandel Gesellschaftsvertrag für eine Große Transformation. URL: https://www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/user_upload/wbgu/publikationen/hauptgutachten/hg2011/pdf/wbgu_jg2011.pdf
[3] The term “Great Transformation” originally comes from the book “The Great Transformation” (1944) by the social economist Karl Polanyi. He spoke out in favour of a socialism in which labour, land and capital should be withdrawn from the market. In 2007, the then head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and today’s Merkel advisor, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, took up these demands again in the “Potsdam Memorandum”. In the main report of the “Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Government on Global Change (WBGU)” this was then reflected in the title: “World in Transition – Social Contract for a Great Transformation”. Uwe Schniedewind, President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy published in 2018 “The Great Transformation: An Introduction to the Art of Social Change”.
[4] Bundeskanzlering (2020). Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel beim 50. Jahrestreffen des Weltwirtschaftsforums am 23. Januar 2020 in Davos. URL: https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/bkin-de/aktuelles/rede-von-bundeskanzlerin-merkel-beim-50-jahrestreffen-des-weltwirtschaftsforums-am-23-januar-2020-in-davos-1715534
[5] Bundeskanzlering (2020). Wir müssen ganz konzentriert weiter machen. URL: https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/bkin-de/aktuelles/bund-laender-corona-1744306
[6] WEF (2021). Our partners. URL: https://www.weforum.org/partners
[7] Schwab K., Malleret T. (2020). Covid-19: The Great Reset. URL: https://straight2point.info/wp-content/uplo-ads/2020/08/COVID-19_-The-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab.pdf
[8] Ibid. | WEF (2018). This is how to sustainably feed 10 billion people by 2050. URL: https://www.wefo-rum.org/agenda/2018/12/how-to-sustainably-feed-10-billion-people-by-2050-in-21-charts
[9] Bachner M. (2012). Weltelite ringt um Krisenlösung. Kurier. URL: https://kurier.at/wirtschaft/weltelite-ringt-um-krisenloesung/755.974
[10] WEF (2020). Special Annual Meeting 2021 to Take Place in Singapore in May. URL: https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/12/special-annual-meet-ing-2021-to-take-place-in-singapore-in-may/
[11] Schwab K., Malleret T. (2020).
[12] Schäuble W. (2020). Die Corona-Krise ist eine große Chance. Neue Westfälische. URL: https://www.nw.de/nachrich-ten/politik/22845605_Schaeuble-Die-Corona-Krise-ist-eine-grosse-Chance.html
[13] Reuters (2020). Von der Leyen stellt Kampf gegen Corona und Klimakrise in den Fokus. URL: https://de.reuters.com/article/eu-kommission-klima-idDEKBN26711P
[14] WEF (2021). The Great Reset. URL: https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/
[15] Schwab K., Malleret T. (2020).
[16] Gärtner E.L. (2020). Mit einem „Great Reset“ will Klaus Schwab die Welt verändern. The European. URL: https://www.theeuropean.de/edgar-ludwig-gaertner/klaus-schwabs-vision-von-einer-neuen-weltordnung/
[17] Boot A. et al. (2020). What is Really New in Fintech. IMF. URL: https://blogs.imf.org/2020/12/17/what-is-really-new-in-fintech/
[18] Schwab K. (2016). Die Vierte Industrielle Revolution. München.
[19] Halefeldt E. (2020). Von WEF, UNO und Co. – Was der Great Reset bedeutet. Tichys Einblick. URL: https://www.tichyseinblick.de/FEUILLETON/GREAT-RESET/
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