【社会】欧洲如何利用工业衰退并转型世界博物馆

【来源龙腾网】

正文原创翻译：

Volkswagen workers warned the company against making a “historic mistake” this week as bosses prepare to enter talks with unx leaders over one of the biggest shake-ups in its 87-year history.

本周，大众汽车工人警告公司不要犯下“历史性错误”，因为老板们正准备与工会领导人就其87年历史上最大的动荡之一展开谈判。

It is not a usual round of negotiations over pay and conditions: Volkswagen is considering the closure of factories in Germany, a first for the carmaker in its home country.

这不是一轮普通的薪酬和条件谈判：大众汽车公司正在考虑关闭在德国的工厂，这在该汽车制造商的祖国尚属首次。

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It is the latest flashpoint in the economic crisis engulfing Germany and the wider European manufacturing industry.

这是席卷德国乃至整个欧洲制造业的经济危机的最新热点。

The slump is so severe that the European Central Bank (ECB) has raised the prospect that the Continent may have to radically shift its focus, abandoning swathes of uneconomical manufacturing and embracing services instead, and particularly booming sectors such as tourism.

经济衰退如此严重，以至于欧洲中央银行（ECB）提出，欧洲大陆可能不得不彻底转变工作重点，放弃大量不经济的制造业，转而发展服务业，尤其是旅游业等蓬勃发展的行业。

It highlighted the threat to factories from cheap Chinese goods flooding world markets, undercutting those made in Germany, which it said ultimately resulted in “significant losses of price competitiveness for the eurozone”.

它强调了中国廉价商品充斥世界市场并压低德国制造的商品价格对工厂造成的威胁，称这最终导致“欧元区价格竞争力的重大损失”。

The ECB’s solution is to try something radical at home: focus on tourism.

欧洲央行的解决方案是在国内尝试一些激进的做法：关注旅游业。

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It is easy to see why analysts might be tempted to call time on Europe’s struggling factories and push for something new.

这就不难理解，为什么分析家们可能会认为欧洲的工厂已经陷入困境，应该重新开始。

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Germany, which relies so heavily on industry, is in a seemingly permanent stagnation, teetering on the brink of recession for several years even as other economies bounce back from the pandemic.

严重依赖工业的德国似乎长期处于停滞状态，数年来一直徘徊在衰退的边缘，即使其他国家的经济已从疫情后反弹。

The eurozone’s share of global goods exports has been shrinking for decades, but the crisis has intensified with the war in Ukraine.

几十年来，欧元区在全球商品出口中的份额一直在萎缩，但随着乌克兰战争的爆发，危机愈演愈烈。

Energy prices jumped from around twice those in the US before Covid to a peak of more than five times in 2022. Even now, energy costs around four times as much as it does on the other side of the Atlantic, underlining the long-term blow to Europe’s factories’ competitiveness.

能源价格从新冠疫情前美国的两倍左右飙升至2022年的五倍多。即使是现在，能源价格也是大西洋彼岸的四倍左右，这凸显了欧洲工厂竞争力受到的长期打压。

Some of Germany’s largest employers are even switching their focus and investment toward China.

德国一些最大的雇主甚至将投资重点转向了中国。

Chemicals giant BASF is expanding its €10bn (£8.4bn) site in Guangdong, in the biggest investment since the storied company was founded on the banks of the Rhine in 1865.

化工巨头巴斯夫正在广东扩建其价值100亿欧元（84亿英镑）的生产基地，这是这家历史悠久的公司自1865年在莱茵河畔成立以来最大的一笔投资。

Business surveys show manufacturing is consistently shrinking across much of the eurozone, even as services, and particularly tourism, roar ahead.

商业调查显示，欧元区大部分地区的制造业持续萎缩，而服务业，尤其是旅游业却大幅增长。

Inspiration for revitalising old industrial areas abounds from Europe’s hottest travel destinations.

欧洲最热门的旅游目的地为振兴老工业区提供了大量灵感。

Mateu Hernández, at Tourisme de Barcelona, says that until the 1990s the Spanish city was suffering a post-industrial slump that he compares to British cities such as Birmingham and Liverpool, before the Olympics helped kickstart a turnaround.

巴塞罗那旅游局的马特乌-埃尔南德斯说，直到20世纪90年代，这座西班牙城市还在经历后工业时代的萧条，他将其与伯明翰和利物浦等英国城市相提并论，直到奥运会的举办才帮助这座城市开始好转。

“Barcelona struggled against deindustrialisation through introducing services and tourism. That allowed Barcelona to stay alive as a wealthy city,” he says.

“巴塞罗那与非工业化作斗争的方式引进服务业和旅游业。这使得巴塞罗那作为一个富裕的城市得以保持活力，”他说。

Tourism has kept the whole country afloat.

旅游业支撑着整个国家。

Spain’s economy is on course to grow by 2.8pc this year, according to the OECD’s latest forecasts. That is more than twice as fast as France, and even outstrips the 2.6pc growth anticipated in the US.

根据经合组织（OECD）的最新预测，西班牙经济今年将增长2.8个百分点。这一速度是法国的两倍多，甚至超过了美国2.6个百分点的预期增长。

The contrast with Germany could not be starker. As workers in Germany suffer from a lack of demand for their goods, Spain’s tourist numbers are so high that campaigns have erupted against their impact on residents, the environment and the jobs market.

与德国的对比再鲜明不过了。当德国的工人因商品供不应求而苦恼时，西班牙的游客数量却居高不下，以至于爆发了反对游客对居民、环境和就业市场造成影响的运动。

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Protesters this summer blasted tourists with water pistols in Barcelona, put up signs in English falsely claiming beaches in Mallorca are closed, and marched through the Canary Islands denouncing the number of visitors and the impact on locals.

今年夏天，抗议者在巴塞罗那用水枪冲击游客，用英语竖起标语谎称马略卡岛的海滩关闭，并在加那利群岛游行，谴责游客数量和对当地人造成的影响。

In an acknowledgement of local discontent, the tourism slogan “Visit Barcelona” has been replaced with “This is Barcelona”, as the city stops seeking merely higher volumes of visitors.

为了表达当地人的不满，“访问巴塞罗那”的旅游口号已被“这就是巴塞罗那”所取代，因为这座城市不再仅仅追求更多的游客量。

Spain might be the shining example, but turning from manufacturing to tourism is not unprecedented in Germany.

西班牙可能是一个光辉的例子，但从制造业转向旅游业在德国也并非没有先例。

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The Zollverein coal mine and powerplant in Essen, in the industrial heartland of the Ruhr, is now a Unesco world heritage site, museum and shopping centre.

位于鲁尔工业中心地带埃森的佐尔韦林煤矿和发电厂如今已成为联合国教科文组织世界遗产、博物馆和购物中心。

On the other side of the country, the former textiles hub of Chemnitz – still host to a giant statue of Karl Marx’s head, a legacy from its days behind the Iron Curtain – is next year’s European capital of culture.

在国家的另一端，开姆尼茨曾经是纺织业中心，至今仍保留着卡尔-马克思的巨型头像，这是它在铁幕之后留下的遗产，它将成为明年的欧洲文化之都。

Tourism is now the third-biggest employer in the country after healthcare and retail, according to the country’s tourist board.

据该国旅游局称，旅游业目前是该国仅次于医疗保健和零售业的第三大雇主。

In the past year Germany has added 23,000 jobs in hospitality, according to the investment bank Société Générale – not enough to replace the 123,000 lost in manufacturing, but a sign that there is rising demand.

根据投资银行法国兴业银行的数据，在过去的一年里，德国在酒店业增加了2.3万个工作岗位，虽然还不足以取代制造业失去的12.3万个工作岗位，但这表明需求正在上升。

But a wholesale shift from industry to holidaymaking might be too radical an idea for Germany, and would be perceived as a surrender to China in some quarters.

但是，对德国来说，从工业到旅游业的全面转变可能是一个过于激进的想法，在某些方面会被视为向中国投降。

Volker Treier at DIHK, the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says the slump hit after Germany became complacent, taking its competitiveness for granted even as red tape and regulations piled up at a far faster rate than those in the US.

德国工商总会的沃尔克-特雷尔说，经济衰退是在德国变得自满之后才发生的，尽管繁文缛节和法规的堆积速度远远快于美国，但德国仍将其竞争力视为理所当然。

He says it is not the time to give up on industry.

他说，现在还不是放弃工业的时候。

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“We still have wonderful companies with well-known trademarks, very well located in world markets. We have to unleash private sector activities again, cut red tape and regulations,” he says.

他说：“我们仍然拥有拥有驰名商标的优秀企业，它们在世界市场上占有非常有利的位置。我们必须再次释放私营部门的活力，减少繁文缛节和规章制度，”他说。

“It is not too late to get a turnaround. We are still in a market position which is not lost, especially when it comes to the degree of innovation, and the cooperation between science institutions and the business sector, as we have in Germany.”

“现在扭转局面还为时不晚。我们的市场地位仍未丧失，尤其是在创新程度以及科学机构与企业部门之间的合作方面，就像我们过去在德国做得那样。”

Levelling the playing field with China would help manufacturers recover, Treier says, as would more free-trade deals.

特雷尔说，与中国建立公平的竞争环境将有助于制造商的复苏，更多的自由贸易协议也是如此。

Turning away from factories also risks beating swords into ploughshares just as war has arrived on the EU’s doorstep, underlining the need for heavy industry for the sake of security.

就在战争已经打到欧盟家门口的时候，放弃工厂也有可能将化剑为犁，这凸显了重工业对安全的必要性。

Jude Kirton-Darling at trade unx group industriAll Europe says: “One of the lessons of the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine is the need for strategic autonomy.”

欧洲工会的裘德-基尔顿-达林说：“疫情和入侵乌克兰的教训之一就是需要战略自主。”

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Calls to focus on services and tourism instead of manufacturing fail to appreciate the vulnerabilities exposed by recent events, she argues, comparing it to the wave of globalisation of the 1990s which accompanied a turn away from industry.

她认为，将重点放在服务业和旅游业而非制造业的呼吁没有认识到近期事件暴露出的脆弱性，并将其与20世纪90年代伴随着工业转型的全球化浪潮相提并论。

“All that analysis was that services were the future for Europe, you could rely on global value chains, you could import things that are produced elsewhere in the world cheaper, and there were no consequences for that,” she says.

她说：“所有的分析都认为，服务业是欧洲的未来，你可以依赖全球价值链，你可以以更低的价格进口世界其他地方生产的东西，而不会带来任何后果。”

“But you create major vulnerabilities by pursuing that approach. We saw that in the pandemic in relation to basic medicines [and] semiconductors.”

“但是，采取这种方法会造成重大漏洞。在这次疫情中，我们在基本药物和半导体方面看到了这一点。”

There is also the likelihood that workers would not be best pleased with an industrial overhaul.

此外，工人也很可能不会对工业改革感到满意。

In Mallorca, the heart of some of Spain’s protests, Aleix Calveras Maristany, professor of business economics at the University of the Balearic Islands, says jobs in tourism are not always good substitutes for those in manufacturing.

在西班牙一些抗议活动的中心地带的马略卡岛，巴利阿里群岛大学商业经济学教授阿莱克斯-卡尔维拉斯-马里斯塔尼说，旅游业的工作岗位并不总能很好地替代制造业的工作岗位。

“It is true that the Spanish economy is growing, to a large extent because it is dependent on global demand for tourism,” he says.

他说：“西班牙经济确实在增长，这在很大程度上是因为它依赖于全球旅游业的需求。”

“But we should look at productivity and wages. A lot of the jobs are not highly paid, and they do not need a lot of qualifications.”

“但我们应该关注生产率和工资。很多工作的工资并不高，也不需要很高的资历。”

插图：埃森庞大的埃森关税同盟工业区作为文化遗址焕发新生。

With warnings like that, German workers will need quite some persuading by the ECB if they are to give up hope on manufacturing and welcome visitors to their factories as museums instead.

在这样的警告下，德国工人如果还要放弃对制造业的希望，转而欢迎参观者到他们的工厂参观博物馆，就需要欧洲央行的一番劝说了。