Ueckermünde Foundry Crisis Heads to City Hall as CDU Minister and State Economy Chief Agree to October 30 Talks

Union minister of state Philipp Amthor and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's economy minister Wolfgang Blank will sit down with the Ueckermünde foundry's crisis committee, the IG Metall union and the works council at 16:30 on 30 October 2026, as efforts intensify to keep the threatened ironworks in the Vorpommern town from closing.

The meeting brings federal and state politics directly into a dispute that has so far played out between the plant's owners and its workforce. For Blank, the visit is a return trip to the site.

Expectations from the town's own representatives are running high ahead of the session. City president Robert Kriewitz said the federal government must "show its colours" in the current crisis.

Workers prepare a sharp letter to two state governments

Employee representatives and the crisis committee are not waiting for the talks to produce results. They are preparing a strongly worded letter — a Brandbrief — addressed to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's minister-president Manuela Schwesig and to the Saarland state government, aiming to pull both regional administrations directly into the fight to preserve the industrial site.

The backdrop is a closure decision taken by the owners. On 21 October 2026, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's economy ministry said short-term time had to be bought in order to work out medium- and long-term solutions for the operation. At the same time, the ministry stated that at that point there was no indication the investors — Aequita SE & Co. KGaA and the Breyden group — would reconsider their decision to shut the plant.

Blank had already attacked the approach taken by Breyden and Aequita sharply on 21 October 2026, calling on the company to finally live up to its regional and social responsibility towards its employees and the site.

A local voice from the chancellery

Amthor arrives with more than a portfolio interest in the case: the state minister, who handles federal-state coordination in the Federal Chancellery, is a native of Ueckermünde and has followed the situation on the ground for some time. On 19 October 2026 he sent a message of support to participants in a Monday demonstration, which mayor Tino Spiegelberg read out to the assembled protesters.

The joint meeting now scheduled with the works council, the union and the economy ministry is meant to establish what room for manoeuvre the state and federal governments still see to avert the foundry's shutdown.