Lars Baumguertel wants Germany’s politicians to get out their cheque books.
The 58-year-old executive runs one of the last surviving manufacturers in Gelsenkirchen, a former coal town in the industrialized Ruhr Valley.
But his company, like many in the Mittelstand – the tissue of small- and medium-sized manufacturers that powers Germany’s economy – is reeling from high energy costs after the Ukraine war ended supplies of cheap Russian gas.
Europe’s
