German chancellor attacks offshoring

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder criticized Monday a leading industry representative who urged companies not to wait for better government policies but to act now and seize opportunities available in the low labor-cost Eastern Europe countries soon to join the European Union.

At a meeting with advisors, the chancellor referred to the remarks made earlier in the day by Ludwig Georg Braun, president of the German Federation of Chambers of Commerce, as “unpatriotic,” government spokesman Bela Anda told reporters in Berlin.

In an interview with the German business newspaper Handelsblatt, Braun attacked the German government for having “too little understanding of business.” He said the government needed to support policies that encouraged people to consume more and industry to invest more. Neither is possible, he said, “when laws and regulations are constantly changed.”

The clash between Schröder and Braun comes as Siemens AG, Germany’s largest high-tech company, considers moving jobs to Eastern Europe and India, according to the German labor union IG Metall. The company, which employs 170,000 people in Germany out of a worldwide labor force of 417,000, is currently holding talks with labor officials to discuss its employment plans for Germany, the union said.

Although Chief Executive Officer Heinrich von Pierer has threatened publicly to pull out of the national employers’ union and not participate in wage negotiations if the labor unions and the government don’t show greater flexibility in labor market reforms, his office issued a statement Tuesday saying the goal is to keep as many jobs in Germany as possible.

Siemens said it has no plans to outsource up to 10,000 jobs, as reported in the German media over the past few days.