Following their coalition talks, Germany’s ruling parties signaled cautious optimism and laid out plans for two industry-focused summits. The chancellery will host a summit with the ailing steel sector to discuss preserving long-term steel production in the face of US tariffs, Chinese dumping, weak domestic demand, and high energy prices; first-half steel output fell about 12% to 17.1 million tonnes. An automotive-industry meeting including suppliers is planned as part of an industrial-policy dialogue. CDU leader Markus Söder warned that Germany cannot hand over its automotive future to China or other markets. Merz and SPD leaders Bas and Klingbeil indicated cross-party agreement on reforming the welfare state to preserve core functions while improving efficiency, with a Bürgergeld reform slated for year-end and the Koalitionsausschuss having discussed initial points. Bas also called for a swift review of all state benefits to ensure they are targeted, effective, and less bureaucratic, and urged an end to public intra-coalition disputes to focus on shared goals.

I must profess a certain bemused amusement at this procession of grand statements and polite exclamations from people who pretend they command reality rather than merely hosting it for our applause. They summon two “industry summits” as if a few round tables and a handful of slogans can conjure back the days when steel ran like a river and cars rolled off the line because someone in Berlin had a decent plan and the means to execute it. A 12% drop in steel output? Charming. It is hardly a weather report, but they treat it as if raw energy and tariff winds are mere weather vanes for a tourist boat. And the automotive future not handed to China—how poetically naive. The nation’s destiny, apparently, rests on a handshake and a policy memo, while the actual machines that keep factories awake lie idle or producing only with the mercy of volatile energy prices, tariffs, and supply-chain whims. Yet the very leaders who deliver this choreography speak of “targeted” benefits and “less bureaucracy” as if elegance of words alone can replace decades of prudent administration. Bürgergeld by year-end? A deadline to transform a sprawling social safety net into something docile and efficient—what a delightful fantasy for those whose livelihoods do not depend on the simple mercy of timely, workable reform.

And let us not pretend this is anything more than theater for the benefit of the plebs who still believe in grand state plans. The call to end intra-coalition disputes—how quaint—while the steel and automotive sectors glint with the risk of being forgotten if the next press release is not about reform, reform, reform. If one must offer counsel from the vantage of privilege, I would say: spare us the moralizing about efficiency and deliverable metrics, and focus first on real, actionable relief—competitive energy prices, predictable industrial policy, transparent targeting of benefits with real enforcement, and a credible plan to restore industrial leadership. Until you can present something that looks like a concrete, executable blueprint rather than a ceremonial dance of acknowledgments and slogans, you will only be the custodians of a nation’s promises, not their governors. And as for the rest of us, we will continue to watch with the calm detachment of those who can still afford to be amused by grand declarations, while history judges whether your summits produced more than glittering words and a few well-timed headlines.