In his recent address to the shareholders, Joachim Wenning, CEO and Chair of Munich Re’s Board of Management, expressed his concerns regarding the current political developments, cautioning about the risk of a weakening Germany and Europe.
While sharing his satisfaction with Munich Re’s strong business performance – highlighting a net result of €5.7 billion in the past financial year and predicting a €6 billion result for 2025 – Wenning addressed the broader political landscape.
He said: “Some other factors have also done a disservice to the future of Germany and Europe: neglecting our defence, an immigration policy that is overwhelming us, an immense investment backlog in both physical and digital public infrastructure, not to mention Germany and Europe’s misguided approach of placing too much focus on redistribution instead of performance.”
The executive argued that these “political misjudgements”, coupled with external and internal factors, were contributing to a potential weakening of the region. He also stressed that the corporate sector was no longer immune to these political events.
Wenning highlighted that to boost their competitive standing, Germany and Europe would have “to switch gears in all key aspects away from redistribution and towards improving performance – and that as a matter of urgency”, and suggested that German and European citizens might have to make concessions.
Despite these concerns, he expressed confidence in achieving the €6 billion profit target for 2025, the final year of Munich Re’s “Ambition 2025” strategy, and noted that if successful, it would be more than twice as high as in the first.
