 Herzlich willkommen bei der Konferenz. Wir haben die Interpretation in Englisch, German und Spanisch. Du findest die Interpretation-Channels auf der Symbolglobe. Auf der Globe siehst du die Eier. Wir werden die vier Präsentationen hier schenken. Aber die nächsten Diskussion werden wir nicht schenken. Es sind mehr und mehr Leute mit uns, die jetzt im Wettbewerb sind. Heute hat die Transformation des Transportsektors und der Automobilindustrie gesetzt. Wir brauchen eine neue Direktion für das Transportsektor, weil der Transportsektor ist der einzige, in dem die carbon emissions in den letzten Jahren erhöhen. Aber für ein paar Jahre wird die Automobilindustrie, aber es werden sehr viele Ängste sein in der Automobilindustrie, der Elektrifizierung, der Digitalisierung und der Automatisierung in Produktion. Was es jetzt so ist, ist eine Schauung zu haben, und zu sorgen, dass die Interessen von den Arbeitern nicht überguckt, sodass sie integriert sind, sodass wir eine Transition bringen können. Das ist etwas, das von Trady Union for many years. Yesterday, the Commission presented the EU fit for 55, a new package of measures with which climate neutrality is to be reached by 2050 is to be implemented. And huge changes are awaiting us in the automobile industry in in transport. The commission proposes that the combustion engine is faced out by 2035, i.e. to increase the emission, the emission standards in a way that makes it impossible for combustion engines to comply with it. So the question is how can we manage the transition? How can we reach higher proportion of electrical cars, cars without damaging the employment sector? And another challenge is the question, how can we reach higher capacity for alternative propulsion engines, also for buses and for vehicles of collective transport or public transport. The need is huge. The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation will publish a study in a few weeks. We made a poll in the automobile sector and in the production sector for alternative vehicles. We're listening to scientists from Brazil, the Czech Republic, France and Italy from Serbia. I hope I haven't forgotten anybody. Some of the authors are here tonight of the authors of the study, which makes me particularly happy. So the aim is to reach the just ambition and at the same time protect the sector against job losses so that we can build by building up alternative productions. It is important that mobility is still possible. Mobility means participation in society. And we as the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation with the progressive forces in society have to try to reach this objective. This was my introduction. We're going to listen to four speeches. I'm very happy that we have these four keynote speakers. And after the speeches, we will be able to discuss among ourselves. You can ask for the floor or by writing a question into the chat. You can express a question or a comment in the chat. So I'd like to present the keynote speakers. We're going to start with Ulrike Eifler. Ulrike is a member of the party, the link, the left speaker of the working group company and trade unions. She's going to talk for 10 minutes. Then we will listen to Benjamin Tennis, senior policy advisor at the European trade at Industry All, the European Federation for the metal working sector, then Katharina Steele from the climate movement Students for Future. She's going to talk to us and she also has presented a PowerPoint presentation, I believe. And last but not least, Katharina Steele from Hungary, International Secretary of the Hungarian Trade Union Confederation. And he is going to present things from an Eastern European perspective is going to talk about the automobile sector, automobile manufacturing. And I'm already going to say thanks to the interpreters without whom today's meeting would not be possible. And I'd also like to thank Juliet Pierce, who is responsible today for the technical support. So let's start. Let's begin with Ulrike Eifler. Ulrike, you have the floor. Thank you very much, Manuela. Hello, everybody. I think it's very important that we face up to the question of progressive industrial policy, especially against the backdrop of, well, how shall I call it, of the fact that the political mainstream discusses, is discussing industrial policy, only focusing on industrial modernization, on the single market on competitiveness. So what we're going to have to do today is to see how we can gear up in order, sorry, what most people talk about is how they can gear up in order to prevail in international competition. But the progressive forces in our society have to take into consideration that industrial policy is also part of a societal pro process. If we only talk about different propellations and think about which we have to fund and which not propulsion engines for individual transport. This is not really something that will lead up to the mobility transition for this. We need the right politics and therefore industrial policy can be part of an overall societal process. I believe that the automobile sector is important for us three reasons and has to be considered by us two for these three reasons. First of all, because of what Manuela in her introduction said, that the automobile industry is an important source for carbon emissions. We knew this from studies from 2009, that the 12 largest automobile companies produce more CO2 than the entire EU Volkswagen alone emits more CO2 than Australia, for example. And this sector is the only sector in which carbon emissions increased in the last years. So if we want to stop the climate collapse, we have to do something in the automobile industry, need this transition in this sector. And in the automobile sector, we have 12 million employees in the automobile sector, 12 million employees, that's an important figure. And we know from the United States, what happens when large the industrialization processes are not politically accompanied. This is something we should therefore keep in mind. And my third point is that the automobile industry is certainly a central source of power for trade unions. In this sector, we are well organized, have quite some bargaining power, have a certain institutional power, think about all the good collective bargaining results we have been able to achieve. The entire trade union movement, I believe, draws its strength mainly from this sector, even if the bargaining in the field of services in the service sector are another thing, which are carried out in a separate way. But nevertheless, I think what's been done in the automobile sector, in the industrial sector has been an example for other sectors as well. And I think if because of a loss of power of the trade unions in the automobile sector, we would probably have a trigger effect and the trade unions in all sectors would lose out. So we have to consider this eco transition, which is going to happen, which is about to happen, and which also reaching the service sector. And this is a transition, which is unique in our epoch. It's fundamental. And what is unique is also that not only one sector is taken up by this transition, but also sectors. At the same time, we have globalization and digitization. And that means that in commerce, we have automatic automatic tills at the checkout counters with automatic e-learning at the schools, automatic driving. The whole, the entire service sector is digitized. And contrary to what happened in the past, we have now to face up to a transition, which comprises the entire world of labor. This means that work processes, processes, production processes, and the position of certain activities in society are all about to change. And this means that employees don't know what is going to come tomorrow. They feel insecure. And in this entire process, the relation between capital and work is also going to change. And this opens up certain possibilities for employers to deregulate, to bring in more flexibility to live up less to labor standards. We also note that professional activities are not any longer linked to place and time. So the borders of what is a company become more and more unclear. Outsourcing has become easier and easier. And this means that work becomes ever more precarious. We have the platform economy, a symbol for precariousness. And during the pandemic, we have seen that working time changes, times change tremendously. There are no limits anymore. We have a text, we have seen a text on working time during the pandemic, the federal government in Germany changed its law in this respect. Then life working time is also under attack. We notice especially in Germany, there is talk about increasing the retirement age. So there are many, many changes in the world of work and the use, utilization of digital technologies and deregulation on the other hand are things which have been speeded up during the pandemic. And this means that not only social achievements are at risk, but also social contracts, social agreements. That became clear in May last year when the European Automobile Lobby, the large associations of the automobile industry wrote a letter to Ursula von der Leyen and told her, well, we demand that the CO2 limit values are suspended. Employers always try to shift on their production costs to others or social costs to their employees by deregulating ecological costs are shifted on to the, are passed on to the environment. And this is the background to what I've just been telling you about. If you ever look at what has been done so far as to this transition, it is not very much, mainly immobility, mainly, mainly funding of charging stations. But the question is, where does the electricity come from? Where does the lithium for the batteries come from? These are questions which are hardly ever asked. The production of batteries and recycling of the batteries should be an issue too. And therefore, I believe that we should spell out what for us elements of a progressive industrial policy would be. I'd say there are mainly four elements, four elements. I'd like to put to discussion here. First of all, the fact that sustainable mobility has to be funded, has to be promoted, i.e. that we try to construct smaller and more economic passenger cars. Then we need a medium term conversion of the automobile industry in the interest of climate friendly mobility cars have to be geared up less to individual transport than to the mobility transition. And the third step would be to understand these whole processes as a social societal process, which goes well beyond industrial modernisation processes. So we need we need a policy of short ways, which has been coming up in the last few years. And this means that we need more industry, more social care. We have to live up to social needs, because when schools are closed in small villages because they're not profitable anymore, or when hospitals are closed down because they're not profitable anymore. And this means that longer ways will have to be overcome by the people who have to go to another place for the hospital for their school. And the fourth point is that we have to discuss this whole issue while being aware of the fact that this is a very important, very fundamental change that is taking place, an apocal change. We're talking about societal changes or transitions. We're talking about whole political spheres, which will disappear, crisis of democracy and many things more have to be taken into consideration. I think we have reached a historic point. And this is the knowledge we have to have when discussing this issue. Rosa Luxemburg once said, either we are progressive or we fall back to barbarity, I think she is right. Roberto Marrera of transfer in Italy wrote in an essay, the last year was marked by a fight of capital against work. Today the fight is more essential. It's a fight against life. I think this author is right, even though I think that the fight against life has always been a reality. But lately, we have seen that this fight has become ever more existential. The tipping points, the planetary tipping points, the political, social and ecological tipping points have become clearer lately. And we have come closer to these tipping points. And this underscores that this fight has been fought, while knowing that we are at a historical turning point, an ecologically well regulated society. Well, this is a target that you can only achieve in a just society. So we have to jointly fight for this target. This was all. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to discussing with you. Ja, vielen Dank, Ulrike. Vielen Dank, dass du auch den Vielen Dank, Ulrike. Und vielen Dank für das Bild von der Brücke zwischen Ihren konkreten Proposalzen und Begründung der industriellen Politik und der planetarischen Grenze und die Punkte, die wir müssen untersuchen. Ich bin sehr glücklich, zu willkommen in Benjamin. Jetzt hast du die Strecke. Danke, Manuela. Und guten Abend, guten Abend zu all of you. Thank you for having invited Industrial Europe to participate to this important discussion. As many of you already know, Industrial Europe is the European Trade Union Federation representing workers from the industry, extractive industry, energy and manufacturing industry, including the automotive industry, which is, as you can imagine, one of our main sectors. And that's why today's discussion is of the utmost importance for us. Automotive industry is not any industrial sector. It has been said already by Ulrike and Manuela, but in terms of jobs, we have more than 2.5 millions of jobs into the manufacturing of automotive. But we have all together in the European Union 14 million of workers, which rely directly or indirectly on the automotive industry. Automotive industry is also extremely important in terms of innovation, in terms of exports, in terms of fiscal revenues. I just checked the number before this meeting, but for Germany alone, mortal tax revenues represent more than 90 billion euros a year. So for all these reasons, and of course, for what Ulrike already said, in terms of the strength of workers and trade unions within the sector, automotive is among the most important industrial sectors we have in Europe. And this sector is already struggling with a series of structural changes and structural challenges. Of course, de-garanisation is maybe the main one, I will come back to that later, but we also have the shift to digitalisation, the automation of the production processes and assembly lines, fragmentation of the supply chains. And we are also in a context where there are mergers and acquisitions, there are new companies coming in the sectors from other sectors from other countries or the parts of the world. And this, of course, changes the landscape significantly. We are also in a context where the COVID has, and the related measures have dramatically impacted the sector and the workforce. The sales and the production in Europe has dropped by a quarter, roughly in 2020, which is quite significant. Many workers have been at least temporarily unemployed and we have seen during 2020 an unprecedented wave of restructurings, both in OAMs and in the supply chain. All together we have accounted more than 150,000 job losses announced in less than one year in 2020. The sector in Europe is also struggling with a series of dependencies, and notably the shortage of semiconductors is currently dramatically impacting the production in the sector. This is a bit the context where we are a quite important industrial sector, both economically speaking and socially speaking, which is struggling with a series of structural and more punctual challenges. Now we know that the Commission would, the European Union, would like to completely transform this sector and making its carbon neutral, climate neutral in a few decades. Yesterday, the European Commission published its fit for 55% package. It's a quite impressive package, a lot of pages to read, thousands of pages and quite complex pieces of legislation. But if you look at the CO2 standards regulation proposal, it's clearly said that we will have increased emission reduction targets for 2030. We might have a phase out, what is proposed is a phase out of conventional Portrains by 2035. We have in addition a proposal to extend the emissions trading system to fuels, including fuel for road transport, meaning that the automotive sector will be squeezed between the one hand much stricter CO2 rules for the new sales, the new vehicles that will be sold in Europe, and on the other hand strengthening of carbon pricing for the fuels. So the future of the sector is clearly for the European Union low carbon and if possible, carbon neutral. This is where we have to go and the picture and the direction is clear. This is the compass we have, the automotive sector and road transport must become climate neutral in two or three decades. Now in terms of how the picture is a little bit less clear, if I may say, we have indeed a series of initiatives that we support. Let's mention Battery Alliance and the related important project of common European interest that should and that that is already boosting the investment in the battery value chains in in Europe. There is also Hydrogen Industry Alliance and an Industry Alliance for road materials. All those initiatives aim at strengthening, securing the different parts of the automotive value chain in Europe while decarbonizing it. Now there are a series of blind spots and issues that will need to be discussed. Some of them have already been mentioned by Ulrike, the sustainability of batteries, the supply of raw materials and key components. We could also mention the technology neutrality principle. What about the hybrids? What about the possibility to develop low carbon sustainable fuels? All those issues will have to be discussed in the coming year to have an industrial strategy. A European industrial strategy able to transform the European automotive industry without triggering disruptive effects. So it's really the challenge we have had of us. It's transforming without undermining the automotive industry in the coming decades. In addition to the different initiatives I just mentioned, we should also point out the fact that a lot will have to be done in terms of rolling out the necessary infrastructure. Recharging, refueling, charging stations will be needed. We have a series of initiatives that have been proposed yesterday, but we also have the recovery plans and the recovery strategy, the recovery fund, which is there to boost this deployment of alternative charging. So we have Jigsaw, we have different elements of an industrial strategy, but we cannot identify at this stage the kind of really integrated industrial plan that Ulrike referred to. And that impression of vagueness is even bigger when you consider the social side of the changes we are talking about. Many reports tend to show that the impact of the electrification of road transport, the employment impact will be huge. We have the ELAP reports published by the Fraunhofer Institute, for instance, we have a report published by the Boston Consulting Group and commissioned by the European Electromobility Platform, sorry. We have a report from Syndex commissioned by the CFDT Trade Union and the Foundation Nicolas Hulot. All those reports have different assumptions, different scopes, different methodologies, but they all show that the challenge ahead of us in terms of transforming the automotive industry is huge. The first challenge is of course quantitative. The number of jobs that are at risk of simply vanishing, disappearing in Europe is important. Electrification might lead to destroy one third of the jobs existing in the manufacturing side of the automotive industry. It might be compensated by the creation of new jobs in the battery industry as well as in the building of infrastructure. But there is another kind of challenge, a more qualitative challenge. The kind of skills profist of those jobs are completely different. We have many jobs among those that will be at risk, that are low or middle qualification jobs, jobs which belong to the metal industry. Whereas in the new jobs that will be created, you have a lot of designers, a lot of engineers and many of those jobs belong to the chemical and IT industries. So the transferability of jobs of skills, sorry, shouldn't be taken for granted. And the number of workers that will have to be retrained, upskilled or re-skilled in the coming years is huge. The report from the Boston Consulting Group, I just referred to, mentioned that up to 2030, 2.4 million of workers will have to be retrained. It gives you an idea of the magnitude of the change we are talking about. It brings me to my next point, which is the fact that given the size of the challenge, given the pace of the change, we cannot simply bet on the weak EU social instruments that we have. We cannot bet neither on the goodwill of multinational companies. We know that there are currently some interesting agreements that have been negotiated by trade unions in some OEMs, some Volkswagen sites in Renault, for the North of France, Volvo as well. But in those OEMs and in some countries, we have well established industrial relations, which do not necessarily exist in all member states and which do not necessarily exist in all part of the value chains, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises. And this is a crucial point I want to stress before concluding my remarks. If you look at the map of the automotive industry in Europe, you will see that the countries' regions that are relying the most on the automotive industry and more precisely on the part of the value chain, which manufacture equipment for traditional Portrains, are also regions where industrial relations are weak or under attack and regions which rely on headquarters that are located in other countries. I am sure that Caroli will develop that point. So, to conclude, to have more certainty for workers and we believe that certainty is not only important for investors. Certainty, predictability also matter for workers. And if we want to have that certainty for workers and communities, which depend on the automotive industry, we need a legally binding framework to anticipate change in Europe that will allow trade unions at all level national, regional, sectoral and at company level to negotiate agreements with the employer, with public authorities to manage the change in a socially fair way. And this is not the case for the moment. We shouldn't take for granted that we have the conditions in Europe to manage the transition in the automotive sector in a socially fair way. So, that's it for my initial intervention. But I will be happy to answer the question you have and to participate in the discussion. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much, Benjamin. Thank you very much for describing all the challenges in along the value chain and also for giving us the view of the workers and of introducing us to the challenges that they need to face. Like, for example, a complete overhaul of their qualifications for new jobs if and when those new jobs come along. Now, I'm very happy to give the floor to the climate change organizations, Katarina of Students for Futures with us. And obviously, we will need to take stock of the changes in this area also. And Katarina will be reporting on the discussion that they hold. Dass ich da sein kann. Ich hoffe, man kann mich gut hören. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for inviting me. My name is Katarina. I'm from Leipzig. I'm a climate activist and trade unionist at Verdi. The Service Union in Germany. I'd like to report a little bit on the question why the topic mobility transition is something which is important for us, why Fridays for Future and things like that are important to us. And then I'd like to talk about what we did with Verdi on the issue of mobility transition. We, as Fridays for Future, I think this is something you know. It doesn't depend on the country because Fridays for Future exist in every country now. We do not only look at fossil energies or coal or renewable energies, but we also discuss issues like agriculture or mobility transition. Rika has already talked about it, that instead what the main problem is for us, Fridays for Future, it is clear that as third largest emitter this sector has to be tackled. Things have to change in this sector. And we are ready to cooperate with groups of which we would think first why do we have something in common, trade unions and Fridays for Future. But in the end, we do have the same objective. The climate crisis, something I think I don't have to elaborate on very much, is something which is well known when working at Volkswagen. I think this is a very important and ever present topic in Eastern Germany. We have floods at the moment, nine people died yesterday. This means it's not possible any longer to say, well, here in central Europe, the climate crisis is not a problem that is important for us. We have floods, we have water scarcity, weather problems, severe weather events. So much to the climate on the climate. And then the other point I'd like to discuss is the question. What about public transport? Because basically you might say, well, great. If everybody takes the bus or a train and nobody takes the car anymore, then we emit much less. But the question is, what can we all do? What can women do? What can we do in the field of transport, public transport? But also employees in this respect are important. There was a poll by Verdi, which yielded that between 98 and 2017, 80% of employees less have been employed, but 24% more people use public transport. And this means that in city life, what is probably the biggest problem is that there is noise and that there are cars everywhere. This is something which does not exist like that in little villages. But this also leads to stress. And if you're a bus driver, you realize the roads, the streets are congested, the buses have to reach their stops at time. And we Verdi and the German Threat Union Federation say that the stress becomes harder and harder. 40% of all the bus drivers in Germany or those who work in public transport are over 50. So many of them will go into retirement soon. And nobody is there to take over from them. Nobody wants to take over these jobs because the stress is extreme. So we have the climate crisis, one big problem, which concerns us all. And as riders for a future, we also looked at public transport, cooperated with Verdi and realized that we have a big problem here. We have to tackle jointly. So what we did in 2019 was that we got together with Verdi and we said without public transport, we are not going to reach our climate objectives or targets. We need a very good public transport, cost free for everybody because it's also a social question. And we started to discuss with Verdi in this respect, which was very exciting, especially because very different groups were discussing here with one another. And I'd like to tell you the following thing at this point. It's interesting to go into the companies with Threat Unions and ask them, have you heard about riders for futures? Do you know that you are our climate saviors that would like to cooperate with you? And it was very interesting, what the employees did. I said, well, you want a cost free public transport? That's the wrong approach. We first have to talk about work conditions, labor conditions. And somebody said, well, you should think about the traffic lights and how they are coordinated with one another, because that's what causes the stress for us, the bus drivers. We are also people who are connected, but then we had the Corona crisis and in our campaign and over 30 cities in Germany we could build networks between Threat Unions and Fridays for Future, so that we could meet that people could get acquainted with one another. I have just said how many, which percentage is over 50 in the sector. Most climate activists are female and in their early 20s, which means that these two groups are very different. One group is very women dominated, the other very men dominated. And it was interesting that we could get together and demonstrate jointly. I also brought some pictures. I tried to show them, but I have to hurry up because I have only 10 minutes speaking time. Yeah, I'll try it and I keep telling you about it. You see the bus driver kitty here on the left together with Markus and Juliane, who in Hamburg made this collage of photography and passed it to the Senate. The question of mobilized individual transport versus public transport is something we have discussed a lot because it's also a social question. If you consider that many come from villages also grew up in a village. We always had two cars in my family because otherwise it would not have been possible. We would not have been able to reach the city. Public transport was not well enough organized for us to use it. Here you see another picture of a small action. We carried out here a larger activity. The first strikes in public transport in which and then there was a collective bargaining around for bus drivers in which bus drivers fought for better labor conditions and participated in and we participated in these strikes, which was very interesting because we, riders for a future anomaly, speak about climate strikes, but strikes for trade unionists have quite a different significance. So here you can see we strike together. Very interesting, very interesting for the employees in the trade unions who got together with young people and they find it quite interesting that these people supported them here in English. Why this campaign was so important first of all, that coming together and striking together with workers was something completely new for Fridays for future. We increased awareness and knowledge also in the Fridays for future movement, but also the issue of climate justice was carried into the trade unions as an important topic. Because all the things which I discussed in the trade unions cannot be discussed without taking into consideration the climate aspects anymore. The climate is so important for everyday life. The climate crisis is here. We have to face up to it, to this reality and it is here to stay. And what was also important, what was also quite a success was that for the first time ever in Germany we had a public transport summit, a public transport congress together with the federal government. There are car summits with the automobile industry and the industry tells them, well, what we need from you is this and that and there's taxes and for public transport there is no lobby. So what was really beautiful about this thing is that for the first time we were able to discuss this topic very intensely, that we could make clear to people that they cannot forget us, that they cannot do things without us anymore. And people listen to us, to bus drivers, but also to us, the people from Fridays for future. Here are a few more pictures. Here a colleague had been dismissed and we, Fridays for future, went to the strike to support him. And here the large strike at three o'clock in the morning were Fridays for future activists and employees were there at the depot of the public transport. It was interesting that we started at three o'clock, discussed with trade unionists. A very exciting and interesting thing for him. If I can make a short conclusion, you permit, we Fridays for future would like to call us youth for future. And as Ulrike said, we should thrive much less. We have to look at the issue of long ways, long ways to work, when you very commute with the car. And the problems are solved by just building another another motorway, another road. These are things which have to be changed. And I would say that, thanks to this campaign, I realized that if this is what we want to demand, if we want to demand that the car industry is transformed, then we need a new sector, but many, many people will be need. This is something we have to discuss jointly, but there is no way out of it. You cannot think that just by building electrical cars, we will save the climate. This is something which is not going to happen. No, we have to, we need this transition to public transport now. And we need it as fast as possible for youth for future, for Fridays for future. And I'm one of those who always say, time is up. We have to do things now, not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow. And we shouldn't talk about 2045 or 2050. No, we need the changes now. And I think only jointly can we reach anything Fridays for future are ready to cooperate in many respects, in respect so that we do not work against one another, but work with one another in order to make life better in the future. Ganz besonders gut gefallen, wie du gerade gesagt hast. Thank you very much, Katharina. What I like particularly about your contribution is that it is important to anchor the trade unions in the climate change debate and the climate organisations also in the fight of the trade unions. And I think it is a commonality that we need to understand because we share so many interests. And I'm very happy to now give the floor to Karoli of the Hungarian Trade Union Confederation. Hungary, a country which depends largely on the decisions of the German headquarters of the automotive industry and where probably the situation is perceived slightly different from what it is perceived in Germany. Karoli, you have the floor. You have to unmute yourself, Karoli. Okay, does it work now? Still the digital age is functioning. So I try to speak in English just to have the balance between German and English 50 50. And I would like to bring in four points. First, why so much important is the automotive industry in the central-eastern European countries? Second, a little bit about the challenges. A challenge is in general, but also a little bit from the Hungarian perspective regarding the industry. Then I'd like to speak a little bit about the trade union work and issues and strives regarding the whole processes. And then come to the general question, but Ulrike already referred to the social dialogue of the industrial relation. And that was something mentioned by Benjamin as well. So first of all, why it is so much important. Let me bring you some shocking figures. For Hungary, the automotive industry means 10% of the GDP. 29% of the manufacturing and also 20% approximately of the export. 4% of the Hungarian registered labor force is employed in the automotive industry. Benjamin referred to 12 million. That is the Hungarian part. In the Czech Republic, it is 9% of the GDP, 26% of the manufacturing and 24% of the export. Slovakia, 13.9, nearly 14% of the GDP, 46.6% of industrial export and 39.5% of industrial production. Half of the industrial production is made out of the automotive industry. And in Romania, it is 14% the export, 26% of manufacturing and 24% of the export. So in Hungary, we used to have a joke, which is still true. If the German automotive industry or general, the German economy is coughing, then we in Hungary immediately catch a cold. And that is true. So that's the basic departure. Let me quote a very recent statement from one of the politicians that we are a big assembly plant of the German auto industry, well subsidized by cheap labor and weak local currency. And this is something which we could see also during the past period of the COVID, how German-Hungarian relations have an impact on the automotive industry. The German-Hungarian relations plus the Hungarian governments working against strict EU emission rules, regulations plus a high level of state subsidies provided to the automotive industry. Equals with less dismissals and a stable partnership for the German industry here in Hungary. That's a nice expectation, but very serious. Challenges. The real challenge is how to cope with the first technological changes. Over the prior to the emission scandal, which was already a couple of years back, technologies began to change, however, not every actor could adapt to the modern technologies. And those who have been not able to adapt in a proper way or less, they are mainly the suppliers, they are mainly hit. And often those big ones, by the way, those who are not able to change so fast to all the small details in requirements, requirements by the auto production companies. And this has become even more challenging due to the increasing production of the electrical and hybrid cars. Then the secondary suppliers seem to be not fast enough to adapt. And they are employing the bigger part of the employees in the sector. In Hungary, and that's not much different than in other countries, you see that in Hungary 71% of the companies registered who are micro and small companies. And over half of the workforce is employed in general terms in the micro and small enterprises. By the way, that has an impact on the trade union possibilities and work, because we are totally out of that segment. But I'll come back to that later. So, a little bit, we can see that the pandemic has come in handy for car manufacturers, because they can hide a lot of their problems behind the pandemic. During the pandemic, in Hungary have the big subsidies have been provided to the automotive industry. Just imagine huge, by Hungarian scale, huge subsidy to Audi, which then brought out, it's about 10 billion, 10 billion foreigns, which has brought out 8 billion Euro profit. The profit has been subsidized directly by the Hungarian people. It's so easy, and not the small and medium enterprises received it. But we also see an interesting aspect. There is an increasing standardization within the automotive industry, which is affected in infusions, so, like the engine production has become band-independent. Concrete example, the 1.5 DCI engine by PSA is used, the same engine is used in different countries, in different car manufacturers, in different models. So, there are interesting aspects of what we see, and also there might be important possibilities to have European-level single patterns and then regulatory processes. Not new, but still open question. What we feel is to see that the trends over the past decade, what Benjamin called as blind spots, the changes. It is not clear in which direction the automotive industry is going to change, and not only in Hungary, but in general terms. We have serious changes, and I hope Katarina can also support it. We have changes in this society, in the people's way of living, especially in the big cities, which constitute the bigger part of the population in most of the countries. There are changes in car ownership, changes in social behavior and habits, fast changing in trends on the one hand. But the output is still an open question. What type of engines there is going to be in the future? Is it the internal combustion, where we see that in Japan, Honda, Mazda, they are investing a lot to develop it and further make it less emission output. Is it the electrical engine? With all the questions, we don't speak about how and what the precious metals are produced, with child labor, with forced labor, and so on and so forth. That is out of question. What will happen with the accumulators? You have to find a way in Germany. You are the best to know how you have fought with the nuclear power station leftovers. What will happen with the leftovers after the electrical cars are not used anymore? And so on in Germany. What will come? What will happen with the electric cars? And so on in Germany. What will come? And how it will be made? What are those costs? So it is not at all so cheap. What about the hydrogen engines? In Germany and in Japan, the auto industry is dealing with that quite a lot. What about the hybrid? We see surprising conglomerates coming up, the Valero Siemens conglomerate, which has an impact on the industry and on the market as well. And what about the slav driving vehicles? What will be their role in the future? Technologically, they are ready. It's a question more of the legal and regulatory aspects, which are not yet put. So basically, these are open questions for the industry, which will have an impact also on the labor force. Because the labor force, we have to see that although our trade unions, our metal workers union is seriously trying to analyze and follow the questions and have an antecipation and look into anticipating the changes to come. But who is listening to it? And that's the social dialogue problem. The sector has gone through very, very serious changes, also in the employment policy challenges, respect for robotization. And they have tried also to adopt during the pandemic. But our workers have very big fears. And the major fear is loss of workplace. Benjamin reflected on concrete figures, how it is. Let me tell you that in one of the main suppliers in Hungary to the automotive industry, in one of the factories Bursch has introduced in the logistic area, has introduced digitalization and automation. And 80% less workforce. 80% less workforce. Of course, people are anxious and losing their jobs. Coupled with a non-existent training, retraining or vocational training system. Further training, retraining, is missing in Hungary. And the most important thing is that we have to be able to do it. And this is a major problem. Although the German companies want to do their traditional system, to be put in place in Hungary. And we have studied from the trade union side over the 15 years back and have been pushing for that. But it doesn't really work. Also a question. Training and education. And not only professional vocational training, but general education. The level, how it is reflecting for the future. Are our young people, already the young people, I don't speak about the elderly one, able to cope with the fast changes to come in their life or not? And here I'd like to just point out one point, one bring to your attention a very interesting film. I don't know how much you know about it. It was a film of Jonas Heldt, the title is Automotive. It's from last year. And this is really speaking about the young new generations challenges and questions about their life in the automotive industry. I highly recommend to look into that. And then I come to my last point and that is, how far social dialogue and industrial relations are very important. We could see over the past years that, as you mentioned already previously, that the automotive industry is a core or the basis for trade union activities and the kind of pulling force. It is, that's true, but we need international work together. Because that is sometimes not yet the most appropriately done. And that's a homework for the trade unions, but also for policymakers. The European Commission proposal for the fair and adequate minimum wage. Contains a very important part. And that is the 70% of collective agreement coverage to be established. We don't even have that in the automotive industry in full. And that would be very important for the central and eastern European countries to have the European directive. I know that Nordics and some other countries are not really so happy our trade union colleagues, but there is no fear that we would interfere to their well established systems. We want to have our well established system be built up. And the last point, the sectoral social dialogue, which functions in many of the western European countries in Germany as well. We would like to have its strengthened here in Hungary. In the sectoral social dialogue committee, the main challenges of the automotive industry, including the social aspects, is missing. Otherwise, the main point, and I really, really want to bring and totally subscribe to it, that make it a societal process. Ulrike spoke about it, Katharina spoke about it, Benjamin spoke about it. We must do it together with the whole of the society. It will never work without that. Thanks. Danke. Vielen Dank. Thank you very much, Karoli. That you came back to the important issue of international cooperation, which doesn't quite work as well as we would hope. And that you flagged up the intensive cooperation between the German and the Hungarian government when it comes to automotive industry. We have now concluded all the presentations and we can stop the recording.