Europe’s biggest economy is sliding into stagnation, and a weakening political system is struggling to find an answer
欧洲最大经济体正陷入停滞，日益衰弱的政治体系正在努力寻找答案
Germany’s manufacturing output and its gross domestic product have stagnated since 2018.自2018年以来，德国制造业产出和国内生产总值陷入停滞。MICHAEL KUENNE/PRESSCOV/ZUMA PRESS迈克尔·库恩/普雷斯科夫/祖玛出版社
By Bojan Pancevski Paul Hannon and William Boston
作者：博扬·潘切夫斯基、保罗·汉农和威廉·波士顿
Updated Aug. 29, 2023 华尔街日报
Two decades ago, Germany revived its moribund economy and became a manufacturing powerhouse of an era of globalization.
二十年前，德国重振了垂死的经济，成为全球化时代的制造业强国。
Times changed. Germany didn’t keep up. Now Europe’s biggest economy has to reinvent itself again. But its fractured political class is struggling to find answers to a dizzying conjunction of long-term headaches and short-term crises, leading to a growing sense of malaise.
时代变了。德国没有跟上。现在，欧洲最大的经济体必须再次自我重塑。但其四分五裂的政治阶层正在努力寻找解决长期头痛和短期危机的令人眼花缭乱的答案，导致人们日益感到不安。
Germany will be the world’s only major economy to contract in 2023, with even sanctioned Russia experiencing growth, according to the International Monetary Fund.
国际货币基金组织 (International Monetary Fund) 表示，到 2023 年，德国将成为世界上唯一一个出现收缩的主要经济体，甚至受制裁的俄罗斯也会出现增长。
Germany’s reliance on manufacturing and world trade has made it particularly vulnerable to recent global turbulence: supply-chain disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic, surging energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine, and the rise in inflation and interest rates that have led to a global slowdown.
德国对制造业和世界贸易的依赖使其特别容易受到近期全球动荡的影响：Covid-19大流行期间供应链中断、俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后能源价格飙升以及导致全球经济衰退的通货膨胀和利率上升。减速。
At Germany’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen, top executives shared a dire assessment on an internal conference call in July, according to people familiar with the event. Exploding costs, falling demand and new rivals such as Tesla and Chinese electric-car makers are making for a “perfect storm,” a divisional chief told his colleagues, adding: “The roof is on fire.”
据知情人士透露，德国最大汽车制造商大众汽车的高管在 7 月份的内部电话会议上分享了可怕的评估。一位部门负责人告诉他的同事，爆炸性的成本、下降的需求以及特斯拉和中国电动汽车制造商等新竞争对手正在制造一场“完美风暴”，并补充道：“屋顶着火了。”
The problems aren’t new. Germany’s manufacturing output and its gross domestic product have stagnated since 2018, suggesting that its long-successful model has lost its mojo.
这些问题并不新鲜。德国制造业产出和国内生产总值自 2018 年以来陷入停滞，表明其长期成功的模式已经失去了魔力。
A Volkswagen electric vehicle gets inspected in Zwickau, Germany.一辆大众电动汽车在德国茨维考接受检查。PHOTO: JENS SCHLUETER/GETTY IMAGES照片：延斯·施卢特/盖蒂图片社
China was for years a major driver of Germany’s export boom. A rapidly industrializing China bought up all the capital goods that Germany could make. But China’s investment-heavy growth model has been approaching its limits for years. Growth and demand for imports have faltered.
多年来，中国一直是德国出口繁荣的主要推动力。快速工业化的中国买下了德国能够制造的所有资本货物。但多年来，中国以投资为主的增长模式已接近极限。进口增长和需求已经放缓。
Instead of Germany’s best customers, Chinese industries have become aggressive competitors. Upstart Chinese carmakers are competing with German incumbents such as VW that are lagging in the electric-vehicle revolution.
中国工业不再是德国最好的客户，而是成为积极的竞争对手。新崛起的中国汽车制造商正在与大众汽车等在电动汽车革命中落后的德国老牌汽车公司竞争。
More broadly, the world has become less favorable to the kind of open trade that benefited Germany. The shift was expressed most clearly in then-President Donald Trump imposing tariffs not only on imports from China but also those of U.S. allies in Europe. The U.K.’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, leading to EU sanctions, also signaled a shift toward a more hostile environment for big exporters.
更广泛地说，世界已经不再那么支持让德国受益的开放贸易。这种转变最明显地表现在时任总统唐纳德·特朗普不仅对来自中国的进口商品征收关税，还对美国在欧洲的盟友的进口商品征收关税。英国 2016 年决定退出欧盟，以及俄罗斯 2014 年吞并克里米亚，导致欧盟实施制裁，这也标志着大型出口商将面临更加不利的环境。
Germany’s long industrial boom led to complacency about its domestic weaknesses, from an aging labor force to sclerotic services sectors and mounting bureaucracy. The country was doing better at supporting old industries such as cars, machinery and chemicals than at fostering new ones, such as digital technology. Germany’s only major software company, SAP, was founded in 1975.
德国长期的工业繁荣导致人们对其国内弱点感到自满，这些弱点包括劳动力老龄化、服务业僵化和官僚主义日益严重。中国在支持汽车、机械和化工等老工业方面做得比培育数字技术等新工业方面做得更好。德国唯一的大型软件公司 SAP 成立于 1975 年。
Years of skimping on public investment have led to fraying infrastructure, an increasingly mediocre education system and poor high-speed internet and mobile-phone connectivity compared with other advanced economies.
与其他发达经济体相比，多年来对公共投资的克扣导致了基础设施的磨损、教育体系的日益平庸以及高速互联网和移动电话连接的落后。
Germany’s once-efficient trains have become a byword for lateness. The public administration’s continued reliance on fax machines became a national joke. Even the national soccer teams are being routinely beaten.
德国曾经高效的火车如今已成为迟到的代名词。公共行政部门对传真机的持续依赖成为一个全国性的笑话。甚至国家足球队也经常被击败。
Vehicles for export in Yantai, China, last year. Instead of Germany’s best customers, Chinese industries have become aggressive competitors.去年，中国烟台出口的车辆。中国工业不再是德国最好的客户，而是成为积极的竞争对手。PHOTO: CFOTO/DDP/ZUMA PRESS
Germany’s once-efficient trains have become a byword for lateness.德国曾经高效的火车如今已成为迟到的代名词。PHOTO: MICHAELA REHLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS照片：MICHAELA REHLE/彭博新闻
“We’ve kind of slept through a decade or so of challenges,” said Moritz Schularick, president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
基尔世界经济研究所所长莫里茨·舒拉里克（Moritz Schularick）表示：“我们已经经历了大约十年左右的挑战。”
In March, one of Germany’s most storied companies, multinational industrial-gas group Linde, delisted from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in favor of maintaining a sole listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The decision was driven in part by the growing burden of financial regulation in Germany. But also, Linde, whose roots go back to 1879, said it no longer wanted to be perceived just as German—an association that it believed was depressing its appeal to investors.
今年三月，德国最著名的公司之一、跨国工业气体集团林德从法兰克福证券交易所退市，转而保留在纽约证券交易所的唯一上市地位。这一决定的部分原因是德国金融监管负担日益加重。而且，历史可追溯至 1879 年的林德集团表示，它不再希望被视为德国企业——它认为这种协会会降低其对投资者的吸引力。
Germany today is in the midst of another cycle of success, stagnation and pressure for reforms, said Josef Joffe, a longtime newspaper publisher and a fellow at Stanford University.
长期从事报纸出版商、斯坦福大学研究员约瑟夫·乔夫 (Josef Joffe) 表示，今天的德国正处于另一个成功、停滞和改革压力的循环之中。
“Germany will bounce back, but it suffers from two longer-term ailments: above all its failure to transform an old-industry system into a knowledge economy, and an irrational energy policy,” Joffe said.
“德国将会反弹，但它面临着两个长期问题：首先是未能将旧工业体系转变为知识经济，以及不合理的能源政策，”乔夫说。
A worker pouring molten iron at a foundry in Krefeld, Germany, last year.去年，一名工人在德国克雷菲尔德的一家铸造厂浇注铁水。PHOTO: SASCHA SCHUERMANN/GETTY IMAGES照片：萨莎·舒尔曼/盖蒂图片社
“I think it’s important to remember that Germany is still a global leader,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in an interview. “We’re the world’s fourth-largest economy. We have the economic know-how and I’m proud of our skilled workforce. But at the moment, we are not as competitive as we could be,” he said.
德国财政部长克里斯蒂安·林德纳在接受采访时表示：“我认为重要的是要记住，德国仍然是全球领导者。” “我们是世界第四大经济体。我们拥有经济专业知识，我为我们熟练的劳动力感到自豪。但目前，我们的竞争力还没有达到应有的程度，”他说。
Germany still has many strengths. Its deep reservoir of technical and engineering know-how and its specialty in capital goods still put it in a position to profit from future growth in many emerging economies. Its labor-market reforms have greatly improved the share of the population that has a job. The national debt is lower than that of most of its peers and financial markets view its bonds as among the world’s safest assets.
德国仍然有很多优势。其深厚的技术和工程知识储备以及在资本货物方面的专业知识仍然使其能够从许多新兴经济体的未来增长中获利。其劳动力市场改革极大地提高了有工作的人口比例。国家债务低于大多数同行，金融市场将其债券视为世界上最安全的资产之一。
The country’s challenges now are less severe than they were in the 1990s, after German reunification, said Holger Schmieding, economist at Berenberg Bank in Hamburg.
汉堡贝伦贝格银行 (Berenberg Bank) 经济学家霍尔格·施米丁 (Holger Schmieding) 表示，德国统一后，德国现在面临的挑战没有 90 年代那么严重。
Back then, Germany was struggling with the massive costs of integrating the former Communist east. Rising global competition and rigid labor laws were contributing to high unemployment. Spending on social benefits ballooned. Too many people depended on welfare, while too few workers paid for it. German reliance on manufacturing was seen as old-fashioned at a time when other countries were betting on e-commerce and financial services.
当时，德国正在努力应对整合前共产主义东部地区的巨额成本。日益激烈的全球竞争和严格的劳动法导致了高失业率。社会福利支出激增。太多人依赖福利生活，而支付福利的工人却太少。当其他国家都押注于电子商务和金融服务时，德国对制造业的依赖被视为过时的做法。
After a period of national angst, then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder pared back welfare entitlements, deregulated parts of the labor market and pressured the unemployed to take available jobs. The controversial reforms split Schröder’s Social Democrats, and he fell from power.
经过一段时期的全国焦虑后，时任德国总理格哈德·施罗德削减了福利待遇，放松了部分劳动力市场的管制，并向失业者施压，要求他们接受现有的工作。有争议的改革导致施罗德领导的社会民主党分裂，他也因此下台。
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, in red tie, in Berlin in 2003.2003 年，系红领带的德国总理格哈德·施罗德在柏林。PHOTO: MICHAEL KAPPELER/DDP/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES照片：MICHAEL KAPPELER/DDP/法新社/盖蒂图片社
Private-sector changes were as important as government measures. German companies cooperated with employees to make working practices more flexible. Unions agreed to forgo pay raises in return for keeping factories and jobs in Germany.
私营部门的变革与政府措施同样重要。德国公司与员工合作，使工作方式更加灵活。工会同意放弃加薪，以换取在德国保留工厂和工作岗位。
Germany Inc. grew leaner. Meanwhile, the world was demanding more of what Germans were good at making, including capital goods and luxury cars.
德国公司变得更加精简。与此同时，世界对德国人擅长制造的产品有更多的需求，包括资本货物和豪华汽车。
China’s sweeping investments in industrial capacity powered the sales of machine-tool makers in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. VW invested heavily in China, tapping newly affluent consumers’ appetite for German cars.
中国对工业产能的大规模投资推动了巴伐利亚州和巴登符腾堡州机床制造商的销售。大众汽车在中国投入巨资，满足新富裕消费者对德国汽车的需求。
Schröder’s successor, longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel, presided over years of growth with little pressure for further unpopular overhauls. Booming exports to developing countries helped Germany bounce back from the 2008 global financial crisis better than many other Western countries.
施罗德的继任者、长期担任总理的安格拉·默克尔(Angela Merkel)主持了多年的经济增长，几乎没有面临进一步不受欢迎的改革的压力。对发展中国家的蓬勃出口帮助德国比许多其他西方国家更好地从2008年全球金融危机中恢复过来。
Complacency crept in. Service sectors, which made up the bulk of gross domestic product and jobs, were less dynamic than export-oriented manufacturers. Wage restraint sapped consumer demand. German companies saved rather than invested much of their profits.
自满情绪悄然而至。占国内生产总值和就业大部分的服务业的活力不如出口导向型制造商。工资限制削弱了消费者需求。德国公司将大部分利润储蓄起来，而不是用于投资。
Successful exporters became reluctant to change. German suppliers of automotive components were so confident of their strength that many dismissed warnings that electric vehicles would soon challenge the internal combustion engine. After failing to invest in batteries and other technology for new-generation cars, many now find themselves overtaken by Chinese upstarts.
成功的出口商变得不愿意改变。德国汽车零部件供应商对自己的实力非常有信心，以至于许多人忽视了电动汽车很快将挑战内燃机的警告。在未能投资新一代汽车的电池和其他技术后，许多公司现在发现自己被中国新贵超越。
A recent study by PwC found that German auto suppliers, partly through reluctance to change, have suffered a loss of global market share since 2019 as big as their gains in the previous two decades.
普华永道最近的一项研究发现，德国汽车供应商自 2019 年以来全球市场份额的流失与过去二十年增长的幅度一样大，部分原因是德国汽车供应商不愿变革。
More German businesses are complaining of the growing density of red tape.
越来越多的德国企业抱怨官僚作风日益严重。
BioNTech, a lauded biotech firm that developed the Covid-19 vaccine produced in partnership with Pfizer, recently decided to move some research and clinical-trial activities to the U.K. because of Germany’s restrictive rules on data protection.
BioNTech 是一家备受赞誉的生物技术公司，与辉瑞合作开发了 Covid-19 疫苗，由于德国对数据保护的限制性规定，该公司最近决定将一些研究和临床试验活动转移到英国。
German privacy laws made it impossible to run key studies for cancer cures, BioNTech’s co-founder Ugur Sahin said recently. German approvals processes for new treatments, which were accelerated during the pandemic, have reverted to their sluggish pace, he said.
BioNTech 联合创始人 Ugur Sahin 最近表示，德国隐私法使得癌症治疗的关键研究变得不可能。他说，德国新疗法的审批流程在疫情期间加速，但现在又恢复了缓慢的步伐。
A BioNTech facility in Marburg, Germany. The company recently decided to move some research and clinical-trial activities to the U.K.位于德国马尔堡的 BioNTech 工厂。该公司最近决定将一些研究和临床试验活动转移到英国。PHOTO: BEN KILB/BLOOMBERG NEWS照片：BEN KILB/彭博新闻
Germany ought to be among the nations winning from advances in medical science, said Hans Georg Näder, chairman of Ottobock, a leading maker of high-tech artificial limbs. Instead, operating in Germany is getting evermore difficult thanks to new regulations, he said.
领先的高科技假肢制造商奥托博克公司董事长汉斯·格奥尔格·纳德 (Hans Georg Näder) 表示，德国应该成为受益于医学科学进步的国家之一。相反，由于新的规定，在德国经营变得越来越困难，他说。
One recent law required all German manufacturers to vouch for the environment, legal and ethical credentials of every component’s supplier, requiring even smaller companies to perform due diligence on many foreign firms, often based overseas, such as in China.
最近的一项法律要求所有德国制造商为每个零部件供应商的环境、法律和道德资质提供担保，甚至要求规模较小的公司对许多外国公司进行尽职调查，这些公司通常位于海外，例如中国。
Näder said his company must now scrutinize thousands of business partners, from software developers to makers of tiny metal screws, to comply with regulation. Ottobock decided to open its latest factory in Bulgaria instead of Germany.
纳德表示，他的公司现在必须审查数千家业务合作伙伴，从软件开发商到微型金属螺丝制造商，以遵守法规。奥托博克决定在保加利亚而不是德国开设最新工厂。
Energy costs are posing an existential challenge to sectors such as chemicals. Russia’s war on Ukraine has exposed Germany’s costly bet on Russian gas to help fill a gap left by the decision to shut down nuclear power plants.
能源成本对化工等行业构成了生存挑战。俄罗斯对乌克兰的战争暴露了德国对俄罗斯天然气的昂贵押注，以帮助填补关闭核电站决定留下的缺口。
German politicians dismissed warnings that Russian President Vladimir Putin used gas for geopolitical leverage, saying Moscow had always been a reliable supplier. After Putin invaded Ukraine, he throttled gas deliveries to Germany in an attempt to deter European support for Kyiv.
德国政界人士驳斥了有关俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京利用天然气作为地缘政治影响力的警告，称莫斯科一直是可靠的供应商。普京入侵乌克兰后，他限制了向德国的天然气供应，试图阻止欧洲对基辅的支持。
Energy prices in Europe have declined from last year’s peak as EU countries scrambled to replace Russian gas, but German industry still faces higher costs than competitors in the U.S. and Asia.
随着欧盟国家争相替代俄罗斯天然气，欧洲的能源价格已较去年的峰值有所下降，但德国工业仍面临着比美国和亚洲竞争对手更高的成本。
Hard LandingBusiness activity in Germany is slowing more sharply than among its peers.Composite purchasing managers indexSources: S&P Global; Hamburg Commercial Bank (Germany, France)Note: Seasonally adjusted. Readings above 50 indicate an increase in activity, and below that threshold, a decline.
Sept. 2022'23GermanyU.S.FranceU.K.40455055
German executives’ other complaints include a lack of skilled workers, complex immigration rules that make it hard to bring qualified workers from abroad and spotty telecommunications and digital infrastructure.
德国高管的其他抱怨包括缺乏熟练工人、复杂的移民规则导致很难从国外引进合格的工人以及参差不齐的电信和数字基础设施。
“Our home market fills us with more and more concern,” Martin Brudermüller, chief executive of chemicals giant BASF, said at his annual shareholders’ meeting in April. “Profitability is no longer anywhere near where it should be,” he said.
“我们的国内市场让我们越来越担忧，”化学品巨头巴斯夫首席执行官马丁·薄睦乐 (Martin Brudermuller) 在四月份的年度股东大会上表示。 “盈利能力已不再接近应有的水平，”他说。
One problem Germany can’t fix quickly is demographics. A shrinking labor force has left an estimated two million jobs unfilled. Some 43% of German businesses are struggling to find workers, with the average time for hiring someone approaching six months.
德国无法迅速解决的一个问题是人口结构。劳动力萎缩导致估计有 200 万个工作岗位空缺。约 43% 的德国企业正在努力寻找员工，平均招聘时间接近六个月。
Germany’s fragmented political landscape makes it harder to enact far-reaching changes like the country did 20 years ago. In common with much of Europe, established center-right and center-left parties have lost their electoral dominance. The number of parties in Germany’s parliament has risen steadily.
德国碎片化的政治格局使得该国更难像 20 年前那样实施影响深远的变革。与欧洲大部分地区一样，老牌的中右翼和中左翼政党已经失去了选举主导地位。德国议会中的政党数量稳步增加。
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats lead an unwieldy governing coalition whose members often have diametrically opposed views on the way forward. The Free Democrats want to cut taxes, while the Greens would like to raise them. Left-leaning ministers want to greatly raise public investment spending, financed by borrowing if needed, but finance chief Lindner rejects that. “We need fiscal prudence,” Lindner said.
德国总理奥拉夫·肖尔茨和他的社会民主党领导着一个笨拙的执政联盟，其成员往往对前进的道路持有截然相反的观点。自由民主党希望减税，而绿党则希望提高税收。左倾部长们希望大幅提高公共投资支出，必要时通过借贷筹集资金，但财政部长林德纳拒绝了这一点。 “我们需要审慎的财政政策，”林德纳说。
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats lead an unwieldy governing coalition.PHOTO: NICOLAS ECONOMOU/NURPHOTO/ZUMA PRESS照片：NICOLAS ECONOMOU/NURPHOTO/ZUMA PRESS
Senior government members accept the need to cut red tape, as well as for an overhaul of Germany’s energy supply and infrastructure. But party differences often hold up even modest changes. This month the Greens lifted a veto of Lindner’s proposal to reduce business taxes only after they extracted consent for more welfare spending. As part of the deal, the government agreed to pass another law drafted by one of Lindner’s allies, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, to trim regulation for businesses.
政府高级成员承认需要减少繁文缛节以及对德国能源供应和基础设施进行彻底改革。但党派分歧往往会阻碍哪怕是微小的改变。本月，绿党在获得增加福利支出的同意后，才取消了对林德纳减少营业税提案的否决。作为协议的一部分，政府同意通过林德纳的盟友之一、司法部长马可·布施曼起草的另一项法律，以放松对企业的监管。
Scholz recently rejected gloomy predictions about Germany. Changes are needed but not a fundamental overhaul of the export-led model that has served Germany well throughout the post-World War II era, he said in an interview on national TV recently.
肖尔茨最近否认了对德国的悲观预测。他最近在接受国家电视台采访时表示，需要做出改变，但不需要对在整个二战后时期一直为德国提供良好服务的出口导向型模式进行根本性改革。
He cited the inflow of foreign investment into the microchips sector by companies such as Intel, helped by generous government subsidies. Scholz said planned changes to immigration rules, including making it easier to qualify for German citizenship, would help attract more skilled workers.
他列举了在政府慷慨补贴的帮助下，外国投资通过英特尔等公司流入微芯片行业。肖尔茨表示，计划对移民规则进行修改，包括让获得德国公民资格变得更容易，将有助于吸引更多技术工人。
But Scholz has struggled to stop the infighting in his coalition. The government’s approval ratings have tanked, and the far-right populist Alternative for Germany party has overtaken Scholz’s Social Democrats in opinion polls.
但肖尔茨一直在努力阻止其联盟内的内讧。政府的支持率大幅下降，极右民粹主义的德国另类选择党在民意调查中超过了肖尔茨领导的社会民主党。
“The country is being led by a bunch of Keystone Kops, a motley coalition that can’t get its act together,” Joffe said.
“这个国家正由一群 Keystone Kops 领导，这是一个无法齐心协力的乌合之众联盟，”乔夫说。
