“Krone” interview with Industry President Georg Knill on inflation, climate change and openness to technology. He thinks it is a mistake that politicians prescribe a specific technical solution in the fight against the climate crisis.
Georg Knill, 50, the president of the Federation of Industry, is an optimistic man. As a successful entrepreneur (2300 employees, the family business generates a turnover of 440 million euros and is active in 16 countries), he is used to solving problems and not complaining.
Nevertheless, in the “Krone” interview with the stv. Editor-in-chief Georg Wailand has one topic in particular: “The wage negotiations in the fall worry me. For the previous year we already had deals with increases of 9.9 percent in the electrical sector, in other cases there were wage increases of up to 18 percent – what will it be like in the fall?”
Austria’s competitiveness at risk
In Germany, this was arranged with a one-off payment of 3,000 euros for everyone and an increase of 5.5 percent and a term of 24 months. In Austria, however, inflation at 8.8 percent is still significantly higher than in Germany, where it stands at 6.1 percent. Another “high” wage round could affect Austria’s competitiveness.
So far, our industry has been very successful in getting through the crisis. Knill: “Let’s not forget: about one million people work in the industry in Austria, which is a quarter of all working people. One billion extra export sales provide 6,000 extra jobs.”
Knill is optimistic about the climate issue: “We will also solve this – with the right technology. Politicians have never been well advised to specify a specific technology. It’s about a solution – not an ideological goal.”
criticism of the last generation
Knill takes a critical look at the hobbyhorse of the last generation: “I understand the justified concern, but we are already a few steps further in the solution: we are solving the problem. That is why I say to the young activists: we need you in the workplace, not on the street.”
Austria is well on track with measures to significantly reduce CO2 consumption. Knill: “Steel, paper, cement – Austrian companies are exemplary in these critical sectors. However difficult it may be in practice, we are on the right track.”
The entrepreneur becomes sharp when it comes to the occasionally requested reduction of working hours: “This is a completely illusory discussion that ignores reality. A reduction to 32 hours with a proportional income would lead to an income of 200,000 to 300,000 euros less, calculated over the working life. People don’t know that, nobody tells them that?”
“Our market is all over the world”
Knill is very open about the Mercosur free trade agreement: “I know that the Kronen Zeitung is very critical of this, my argument is that open markets offer more opportunities. Negotiations on the agreement with Canada also took a long time and trade there has increased sharply since then. Our market is all over the world.”
Do the local farmers, who are afraid of cheap meat imports, see it that way? Knill focuses more on high-tech: “Look, we are currently very successful with our developments in Saudi Arabia and Mexico, part of us is built into every Tesla, we focus on innovation. We are just as involved with offshore farms as we are with an energy storage plant.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
