Statement by EES President Dr Ingo Friedrich, April 20th, 2026

The Farewell to the Meritocracy – A “Success” of the Red-Green Mindset

It begins quite innocently, even appealingly, with the notion that we must do more for people with problems. For a while, this felt quite positive and yielded some nice results: accessibility for people with disabilities, traffic lights for people with visual impairments, housing benefits for lower-income tenants, child benefits for parents, basic income support for low-income earners, and so on. However, over time, the group of people with difficulties, that is, vulnerable people, grew ever larger. The red-green zeitgeist more or less conveyed the opinion that most people who aren't truly wealthy are vulnerable. Accordingly, even social groups without any problems felt entitled to state support. Where personal achievement was once paramount, today the call for state funding has often become more important. Perhaps the only group that still has to adhere completely to the “outdated” meritocratic principle – by necessity – is small and medium-sized business owners. But for how much longer ...?

To avoid any misunderstanding: of course, thankfully, there is still a great deal of willingness to perform in all professions and all areas, otherwise we could just “shut down” the whole operation, but: the proportion of those who no longer feel bound by this “old” performance principle has risen significantly and is still growing.

The effects of this development are already clearly noticeable: if overall performance is reduced by just five percent, that translates to five percent less output, five percent less growth, and, in parallel, five percent more social benefits for the vulnerable. In other words, the gradual abandonment of the general principle of merit and the shift towards state benefits, particularly promoted by the red-green mindset, is life-threatening for our prosperity. Given the brutal competitive landscape, especially from China, it is jeopardizing our future viability. "No pain, no gain," as the German proverb says, but the red-green coalition wants to delude the German people into believing that Germany can emerge from the crisis with ever-increasing state aid—what a mistake! A look at history shows that only those who exert themselves, who "pitch in" and work, make progress. Constant cushioning, facilitating, and subsidizing is misguided if it isn't simultaneously accompanied by a demand for individual effort. We humans are naturally inclined to choose the "easy way," which, however, leads us to ruin. The departure from the meritocracy initiated by the red-green coalition is a dangerous misguided path and must be stopped immediately.

Dr. Ingo Friedrich