Volkswagen plant won’t be built in Turkey

The planned Volkswagen plant in Manisa will definitely not be built. The official reason is a slump in demand due to the Corona crisis. Erdogan is now threatening German car companies with "investigations".

Volkswagen (VW), which is still in the grip of the exhaust gas fraud scandal, will not invest in Turkey. The reason given by the group's management was the collapse in worldwide demand as a result of Coronavirus pandemic. Originally, a new VW plant with 4,000 jobs in Western Turkey was to serve the growing sales market in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. A Turkish subsidiary with a capital volume of 164 million US dollars has also been established to this end. Erdogan made great efforts to build a new car factory. He saw hope for the weakening Turkish economy, but above all, in his isolated foreign policy situation, he was concerned with the prestige of bringing a global corporation to Turkey.

The construction of the new VW plant in Manisa, western Turkey, was to be finally decided as early as December 2019. After numerous protests against the Turkish invasion of northern Syria and the human rights situation, the company feared that its image would be damaged by new investments in Turkey. In addition to the Turkish war policy, the lack of legal security and the lack of workers' rights in Turkey also played a role.

Now VW announces that the Passat and Skoda Superb models will in future be built in the Slovakian factory in Bratislava. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's reaction to the closure of the Manisa plant was not long in coming. He is now threatening investigations against several German car manufacturers for violating the competition law. It is possible that the maintenance of the German travel warning is also playing a role, which is causing the regime in Ankara considerable losses in the tourism sector. Money that will be missing to finance the military aggression.