FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for the country to be confident about modernising its society and economy ahead of a two-day cabinet meeting that will tackle topics including climate policy, war in Ukraine and digitisation.
“We will talk about how a society that has so much on the agenda can become and remain confident, because the basis for doing anything is to think that one is capable of it,” Scholz told reporters on Sunday outside Meseberg castle near Berlin.
He said topics for discussion included investments by steel and chemical companies in a shift to climate friendly operations and the opportunities posed by artificial intelligence (AI).
“Germany will be the country that modernises its economy at fast speed in such as way that we will be able to operate free of carbon, and it will be a globally successful export country with well-paid jobs,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who also arrived for talks with the cabinet on Sunday, was “a good friend of the German government” and would talk about how to create a “geopolitically self-assured Europe”, Scholz added.
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Vera Eckert, Editing by Alexander Smith)
