State government wants to bring fighter jet parts production to Brandenburg | rbb24rbb24 rbb|24 Politics Video: rbb24 | 06/15/2023 | Material: Brandenburg current | Source: dpa/george A
Possible armor settlement
06/15/23 | 6:00 p.m
Rheinmetall is looking for a location for a supplier factory for F-35 fighter jets. According to information from rbb and MDR, Brandenburg should also be on the shortlist. Up to 500 new jobs could be created. By Fabian Grieger (rbb24 research) and Edgar Lopez (MDR research)
The Brandenburg state government could be successful in its efforts to locate a factory belonging to the German armaments group Rheinmetall. This emerges from information available to the rbb24 research and MDR research editors. Rheinmetall is currently looking for a new production site to produce parts for F-35 fighter jets. So far, Rheinmetall’s homeland of North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as Lower Saxony and Bremen, have been considered promising candidates for settlement. But Brandenburg seems to have quietly lobbyed quite successfully.
Details not yet known
The Brandenburg Ministry of Economics did not want to comment on the possible choice of location when asked by rbb. The US armaments company Lockheed Martin points out that the German company Rheinmetall is responsible for the location search. When asked, Rheinmetall stated that “final talks with decision-makers still have to be held.” However, they do not want to comment on the details yet.
People entrusted with the process confirmed to rbb and MDR that the final decision on a location was imminent. Organizational and political arrangements still have to be made.
In February of this year, Rheinmetall announced that it had signed a cooperation agreement with the US armaments companies Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. As part of the purchase of 35 F-35A stealth jets for the Bundeswehr, the Americans had agreed to also invest in German production sites. Such investments, from which the industry of the buyer’s country is also supposed to benefit, are common practice in large armaments deals. Specifically, Rheinmetall will build parts of the center fuselage of the F-35 jet in the future.
A good 400 fuselage parts planned annually
A possible decision in favor of Brandenburg would not surprise him, Klaus-Heiner Röhl, an expert on armaments and defense policy at the German Economic Institute, told rbb. “The main factors for the choice of location are the availability of space and skilled workers,” explains Röhl.
These reasons were also decisive for Tesla’s decision to go to Brandenburg. But since the Tesla boom and the settlement of various suppliers from the electromobility sector, the available industrial space is also becoming scarce in Brandenburg. A settlement the size of Tesla would currently have no more space.
The planned Rheinmetall factory, which has so far been designed for a volume of 400 center fuselage sections, has smaller dimensions. “The skilled workers required here can also come from Berlin if they settle in Brandenburg. There is great potential there,” says Röhl.
So far there has been no armaments production in Brandenburg. But that doesn’t have to be an obstacle, says Röhl. Just as little as the great distance to the F-35 factory in Italy, where the aircraft parts are assembled for the European market: “Supplied parts can also be delivered from all over the world.”
100 million euro investment
According to Rheinmetall, the new fuselage center parts factory will create 500 new jobs with an investment of 100 million euros. It is not yet known which location in Brandenburg the state government has offered. The new factory would be a further building block in the offensive industrial settlement policy.
Sebastian Walter, parliamentary group leader of the left, criticizes this course of the state government with regard to the possible settlement of the Rheinmetall factory: “In the end it is a company that lives from the fact that weapons are produced and people are killed with these weapons. And that can not be the goal of Brandenburg’s economic strategy. We have been able to develop very well in recent decades without large armaments companies.”
Walter also refers to the Brandenburg state constitution. It says: Brandenburg is a state committed to peace. So far there has been no armaments production.
Discussion about Rheinmetall settlement foreseeable
The F-35 parts factory would be a novelty for both Brandenburg and Rheinmetall. So far, the armaments group has not been represented in the field of aircraft construction. The Düsseldorf group is expanding; the acquisition of new orders is running at full speed and catapulted the company into the leading German index DAX. The reason for this is the war in Ukraine and the associated change in direction in western armaments policy.
The creation of new locations is not without controversy. Rheinmetall is currently feeling the effects of this in Grossenhain, Saxony, where the announcement of the construction of a powder plant for ammunition production led to protests among the local population. Most recently, Saxony’s Prime Minister Kretschmer announced that the factory would only be built after a successful referendum in Grossenhain. The armaments company was not very enthusiastic about these statements.
Armaments expert Röhl is familiar with such conflicts: “Of course, a new armaments factory can lead to fears, especially against the background of the war in Ukraine. For decades, armaments capacities in Germany have tended to be reduced and not rebuilt.” That’s why, according to Röhl, it’s “important to explain that an attack on a NATO country is unlikely, precisely because of our ability to defend itself.” Left faction leader Walter, in turn, announced that he would organize resistance to a possible settlement.
Broadcast: rbb24 Brandenburg aktuell, June 15, 2023, 7:30 p.m
Contribution by Fabian Grieger (rbb24 research) and Edgar Lopez (MDR research)
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