While Chancellor Friedrich Merz Comes to the CDU’s federal party conference in the Autostadt Stuttgart today, many Mercedes employees and its suppliers, with whom FOCUS was able to speak online, look frustrated at politics. The combustion ban is the most important issue for the people here in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim.

At the Mercedes factory: “The ban on combustion engines has to go!”

David Anselm has been setting up and dismantling production facilities for a Mercedes supplier for a long time. “We know what has happened here over the years,” he says about him Job cuts and has an appeal to the Chancellor: “The combustion engine ban must go!”

It’s not just Mercedes and its suppliers who have invested a lot in the technology over many decades: “This is our hard-earned know-how. We should develop this further – perhaps also with hydrogen.” Many are worried about their jobs and the future for their families, said Anselm.

23,000 people work in the Mercedes plant in Untertürkheim, mostly in the combustion engine sector. Many see the combustion engine issue as a question of survival and feel fooled by politics

Is the combustion engine ban coming or not? And if it comes: when? The political signals have been unsettling employees and workers at Mercedes for months. Hardly anyone wants to read their name on FOCUS online – the topic of combustion engines is too sensitive for everyone who earns their money here.

“The next Federal Chancellor is called Weidel”

When asked about Merz, some people wave off the question in annoyance and walk away. An employee from the IT department stops and lets out his frustration: “I think Friedrich Merz is a bottle, I think everyone is a bottle and the next Chancellor is called Weidel.”

An employee reports that the cost pressure for Mercedes is increasing because it has to serve two product lines in parallel: combustion engines and “E-Vs” – “Electric Vehicles”. The back and forth must finally come to an end, she says.

The combustion engine is seen by many as a question of survival

An employee from the finance department appeals to the Chancellor: “I hope that Merz will turn things around now. Unfortunately, I have doubts in the SPD as to whether the seriousness of the situation has already arrived.” He believes the ban on combustion engines is wrong because we have long since reached the point of significantly optimizing the technology and significantly reducing CO-2 emissions.

The man reports on the bad mood among many Mercedes employees: “The uncertainty is huge, but the crisis is hitting the people who work for suppliers much harder.” Because they depend on the drip of the main work and all decisions.

An employee of a supplier in the e-car sector puts it in a nutshell to FOCUS online: “It would be better if you finally made a clear decision instead of ducking away.” The back and forth also makes it difficult for the e-car industry to make investment decisions.

One thing is clear: At the federal party conference of the CDU that begins today, there will be a proposal from the “SME and Economic Union” (MIT) on the topic of the combustion ban: According to this, Germany should support “a technology-open revision of the CO2 fleet regulation for cars and trucks”. proposed EU regulation insert.

CDU SME and Economic Union: Overturn the ban on combustion engines

The MIT wants to overturn the ban on combustion engines in its current version: “The ban on combustion engines is a symbol of a policy that weakens industrial and medium-sized companies and shifts investments abroad and prevents innovation.”

MIT argues that the combustion engine can be operated almost CO2-neutrally using renewable, biogenic and synthetic, electricity-based fuels.

According to FOCUS online information, the application at the CDU party conference has a great chance of success. Then the ball would be back in Chancellor Merz’s court, who would have to implement this with his coalition partner SPD.