RECESSION IN GERMANY IS A SIGN OF EUROPE'S DEINDUSTRIALIZATION.

By Philip Pilkington.

"Last week Germany announced that, after the government statistics agency revised its recent GDP figures, it was clear that the country was in recession. In recent history it has tended to hold up well as the global economy softened relative to some of Europe’s weaker economies. But this time it seems that Germany is leading the pack into recession.

This is because the recession that is currently looming over Europe is fundamentally different from previous iterations. The coming recession is no simple turning of the business cycle. Instead, it could be the beginning of the deindustrialisation of the European economy, which no longer has access to cheap Russian energy.

Since chatter about deindustrialisation started last year, there has been much confusion on the matter. Some appeared to think that deindustrialisation would mean the instantaneous closure of energy-starved European factories and mass layoffs. Others assumed that the crisis was over because energy futures prices have fallen in recent months.

Deindustrialisation is not something that happens overnight. Rather, it is a gradual process whereby European industry becomes less competitive on the global market, as higher energy costs are passed through in the form of higher prices. We saw something similar happen in Britain in the 1990s, as many factories shut down and few reopened. But the potential deindustrialisation of Europe will probably be more rapid than the British example.

As for energy prices returning to normal, this seems unlikely. Last week the head of Britain’s energy regulator admitted that energy bills were unlikely to fall to pre-crisis levels for at least two years. By all accounts, the regulator is likely being optimistic. Qatar’s energy minister warned around the same time that the “worst is yet to come” for European oil and gas shortages. He would probably know, since Europe is relying heavily on Qatari LNG imports for their energy supplies.

Quantifying the impact of deindustrialisation at this early stage is quite difficult and a clear picture will only emerge in retrospect. But there are already some very notable trends in the data. The German services sector is booming while the manufacturing sector is cratering. This divergence explains why the German economy is currently experiencing only a very shallow or even “technical” recession.

Bluntly, the current contraction we are seeing in Germany’s manufacturing sector relative to its services sector is associated with a much larger downturn — something along the lines of what followed the 2008 financial crisis. Today we are seeing a very large relative contraction in the manufacturing sector that cannot be explained by the relatively modest weakening of the economy.

Put differently: the current manufacturing crunch in Germany is not primarily being driven by Germany’s slack economy. This means that something else is to blame and that something is likely the high energy prices putting enormous pressure on German manufacturing.

German and European deindustrialisation is not yet certain. There is a chance that, after the war in Ukraine is over, the Europeans turn once again to Russia for their energy needs. But right now, in the current diplomatic environment, this seems unlikely. If the current trajectory is followed for the next five to 10 years, however, it seems fairly certain that Germany and Europe will deindustrialise to a significant extent.

Source :

https://unherd.com/thepost/recession-in-germany-is-a-sign-of-europes-deindustrialisation/

Comments

When the Warning Comes from the General Moshe Ya’alon, Jewish Supremacy, and the Echo Nobody Wanted to Hear

History has a cruel sense of irony. Sometimes the most devastating indictments do not come from the oppressed, the bombed, the buried, or the silenced—but from the very architects of power who once swore they were different. This week, that indictment came from Moshe Ya’alon : former Israeli Defense Minister, former IDF Chief of Staff, lifelong pillar of Israel’s security establishment. Not a dissident poet. Not a radical academic. Not a Palestinian survivor. A general. And what he said shattered the last polite illusion. “ The ideology of Jewish supremacy that has become dominant in the Israeli government is reminiscent of Nazi race theory.” Pause there. Sit with it. This was not shouted at a protest . It was not scribbled on a placard. It was written calmly, deliberately, after attending a Holocaust Remembrance ceremony —then reading reports of Jewish settlers attacking Palestinians , blocking ambulances , fracturing skulls , burning homes. Never Again, apparently, now ...

“Not Auschwitz — Yet Still Genocide”: When Israeli Holocaust Historians Break the Silence on Gaza

There are moments in history when the most unsettling truths do not come from one’s enemies, but from within. From those who know the past most intimately. From those whose moral authority is built not on ideology, but on memory. In December 2025, two of Israel’s most respected Holocaust and genocide scholars— Prof. Daniel Blatman and Prof. Amos Goldberg of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—published a deeply unsettling opinion article in Haaretz . What they argued was not casual, rhetorical, or activist hyperbole. It was a grave historical judgment. Their conclusion was stark: What is happening in Gaza is not Auschwitz. But it belongs to the same family of crimes: genocide. Why This Voice Matters Blatman and Goldberg are not marginal figures. They are historians whose professional lives have been devoted to studying Nazi crimes, genocide mechanisms, memory, and moral responsibility . Their scholarship is rooted in the very catastrophe that shaped modern Jewish iden...

Even the Dead Are Not Safe: How Power Desecrates Graves and Calls It Security

There is a final dignity that every civilization, every faith, every moral tradition claims to respect: the dignity of the dead. In Gaza and the West Bank, even that has been revoked. Homes can be flattened. Children can be starved. Hospitals can be reduced to ash. These crimes, we are told, are “tragic necessities.” But graves ? What threat does a corpse pose to a modern army armed with drones , tanks , and nuclear ambiguity ? Apparently, enough to be bulldozed. Graves as Enemy Infrastructure According to detailed reporting by Al Jazeera , Israeli forces in Gaza did not merely fight the living — they waged war on cemeteries . Tombstones were crushed. Graves were excavated . Human remains were scattered, mixed, lost . Families returned not to mourning, but to forensic horror: bones without names, names without bodies. This was not collateral damage . This was not crossfire. This was methodical excavation . Heavy machinery was deployed to retrieve the body of one ...

Don’t Spoil the Show: Gaza, Davos, and the Business Class of Peace

There is a rule at Davos—unwritten, but strictly enforced. Reality is bad for business. Yossi Alpher learned this the hard way. Sitting on a panel at a luxury resort near the Dead Sea, surrounded by ministers, executives, and conflict “experts,” he made the unforgivable mistake of speaking honestly. Grim facts. Grim assessments. No PowerPoint optimism. No Riviera renderings. No applause. A prominent Israeli industrialist later pulled him aside and explained the crime: “ Don’t spoil the show . The idea is to radiate optimism that nourishes an investment climate . It’s all about business. No room for realism .” That sentence may be the most accurate peace-process doctrine of the 21st century. Phase II: Now With Billionaires Fast forward to Davos again. This time, the stage is Gaza—or rather, Gaza™ , the investment opportunity. Trump’s “Board of Peace,” staffed by billionaires and brand managers of global destruction , announces Phase II of a Gaza peace plan with all the s...

Noam Chomsky and the Silence That Broke a Generation

There are betrayals that anger us. And then there are betrayals that leave us quiet. Noam Chomsky belongs to the second kind. For more than half a century, Chomsky stood as a moral compass in an age without direction . He taught generations how power lies, how empires manufacture consent, how language itself becomes a weapon in the hands of elites. He spoke for the voiceless when it was costly, unfashionable, and dangerous . For many of us, he was not merely an intellectual —he was a refuge . Proof that clarity could survive corruption. Proof that integrity could endure. Which is why this moment does not feel like scandal . It feels like mourning . Chris Hedges is right to frame the association between Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey Epstein not as gossip or moral theater, but as a rupture —a crack in something we believed was unbreakable . Epstein was not simply a criminal. He was the embodiment of everything Chomsky spent his life exposing : elite impunity, predation disguised as ...

Ainnbeen

Search This Blog