The future of the region lies in edu­ca­tion and qualification

The chair­man of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Friends of the Ger­­man-Pol­ish Euro­pean Nation­al Park Unteres Oder­tal e. V. Thomas Berg:

“The study com­mis­sioned by the Schwedt city admin­is­tra­tion sets a few new points that have so far been neglect­ed by Schwedt pol­i­tics. The future of the indus­tri­al loca­tion lies in edu­ca­tion and qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The mis­take of not bring­ing a tech­ni­cal col­lege into town must be cor­rect­ed. As an extend­ed work­bench, the Oder region has no chance after Poland’s acces­sion to the EU; wages in the east are unri­valed low. In Ger­many, a high-wage coun­try, the focus must be on qual­i­ty, oth­er­wise the neg­a­tive sce­nario of the study with 26,000 inhab­i­tants in 2020 is more like­ly for Schwedt than the pos­i­tive sce­nario with 36,000 inhab­i­tants. For an eco­nom­ic study, it is under­stand­able that the wish list includes a max­i­mum expan­sion of all con­ceiv­able trans­port routes. In view of gen­er­al­ly tight bud­gets, how­ev­er, pri­or­i­ties have to be set and these are clear­ly in the con­nec­tion Berlin — Schwedt — Stet­tin by road and rail.

The study neglects the so-called soft loca­tion fac­tors, the cul­ture that is cur­rent­ly being mas­sive­ly devel­oped in Schwedt in favor of asphalt and con­crete, but also tourism and nature con­ser­va­tion. The region must accept its nation­al park, which is struc­tural­ly irre­versible, and aggres­sive­ly use it as a pos­i­tive loca­tion fac­tor. Then the chances grow “.