Automotive Industry

• Many industries have gotten more efficient when nationalized. The opposite is not some iron law. More importantly, nationalization means being able to direct production via the state. If the state is aligned with the right goals, this works out well for everyone except fringe capitalists.

• Many industries are subsidized in order to make them viable. This is a well-established form of national competition and as such it's even done defensively because once the other states start doing it you're screwed if you don't. See: Boeing, Airbus, and Bombardier.

• Tariffs are also a standard method for supporting the domestic growth of an industry. Every country that successfully industrialized used them to ensure their own industries aren't destroyed by imports, often at the behest of the national capitalists in those industries.

• Airbus is already this kind of state-supported thing, more or less. This is also simply saying that it will take a few years, which doesn't seem like much of a counterargument to, "this entire industry will be hollowed out and ceded to everyone else".

The Green Party could make this an easy sell because it ties together capitalists' interests, workers' nationalistic desire to be in a competent industry (that pays them), and a vague sense of environmental responsibility.

Of course, the above assumes that any EU country is at least as economically competent as a 19th century industrializing backwater, which is in no way the case. Y'all are ceding your industries to the US as we speak in exchange for nothing.

giving money for free usually means they simply squander it.

yes thats how private sector does it with subsidies given to them but at the same time the state has enough power to arm-twist them into doing whats in the best interests of the country.

If you nationalize it, it becomes less efficient (see Deutsche Bahn)

look at British railways

enacting tariffs provokes a reaction with further side effects.

and? isnt that what the job is? deal with effects? didnt sanctions on Russia have 'effects' much worse?

it probably cannot be done legally by Germany alone, they would have to align with EU

Germany is one of if not the largest powers in the EU, the German state alone is capable enough to do it. Also, I said majority ownership.

Also, how is it about the green party? Minister of transport is FDP.

still part of the coalition.

edit: i think neoliberalism has failed enough at this point for us to see that 'free' trade and privatization isn't in the best interests of the nation or workers, just the capital.