Can Slovenia’s car industry survive without fiscal boosts from European governments?
The car industry is undoubtedly among the industries that were the hardest hit by the economic crisis. The sales downturn that started in the US in 2007 spread rapidly throughout the world. The forecasts have been alarming ever since; the demands for fundamental changes in the industry and in the mindset of its leaders have been growing louder. The happy times of the economic boom have given way to an era of vast government bailouts, which threaten to defuse the sense of urgency for rethinking the industry’s business model. Eye of the storm The car industry is Slovenia’s biggest exporter; with EUR 4 bn of export revenues, it is responsible for one quarter of the country’s exports. Directly and indirectly, it employs 120,000 people. When the industry is hurting, so is the economy at large. The worst, however, seems to have been averted thanks largely to subsidies aimed at increasing car sales in Germany and other key markets for the export-driven Slovene economy. What will happen when t
