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Dr. Karl Tack is a managing director of a family-owned business that manufactures grinding tools. The company has been in operation over 7 generations and is just one of many that operate all across Germany.

According to Blick aktuell here, family-owned businesses make up 90% of the country’s number of privately owned companies. These German family-run businesses are often innovative, are export powerhouses over a broad range of niche sectors, and not surprisingly they are a major part of the German economic back bone. They are a critical pillar of Germany’s 3-trillion-euro economy.

Tack is also a board member of the industry association Die Familienunternehmer — family business owners — which represents 6000 family operated businesses in Germany with combined annual sales of 460 billion euros, reports the online Blick aktuell here. He is also the Chairman of the association’s energy policy commission.

The Association of Family Business Owners stands by the values of freedom, property, competition and responsibility.

The success of family-run companies is not only dependent on world-class innovation, but also on a business-friendly environment. Lately, however, Germany’s energy supply has gone from being an asset to one that is now a burden for many. And as a member of the board of family-owned companies, Tack wishes “to shift his focus on energy policy“, Blick writes.

Climate and energy policy failed spectacularly

Blick quotes Tack:

The Energiewende [transition to green energies] ushered in by the German government has resulted in electricity becoming massively more expensive. The long-term consequence: Jobs are being lost, investments being moved to foreign countries and the industrial base is slowly being destroyed. Policymaking has also failed with its climate-political goals. The high-wire act of climate protection targets and efficient support programs has failed spectacularly“.

These are strong words coming from a leader of small companies, and thus a critical part of German industry, and so they need to be heeded by policymakers soon. Germany can ill-afford to see this economic locomotive weaken, let alone die off.