For this Irish expat, Germany has 'deteriorated', but there is hope
In “The Irish Times,” this Düsseldorf-based marketing director explains how he has seen things change since arriving from Ireland nearly 30 years ago. He hopes that the investments announced by the new German government will have positive effects, particularly on the country's infrastructure.
When he arrived in Germany from his native Ireland almost 30 years ago, Stephen Hurley was already a German speaker. He thanks his parents for “exposing me to European languages from an early age. […] Some would say I am now fully assimilated” into German culture, he jokes in The Irish Times .
Based in Düsseldorf (in western Germany), this marketing director operates entirely “in the German cosmos” . “It’s very important to speak the language if you want to be part of German society. Being bilingual is a real advantage,” he believes, even if English is gaining more and more ground across the Rhine.
This deep knowledge of the language and the time spent abroad allow Stephen Hurley to be critical of his adopted country. Upon his arrival in 1996, he was “impressed by the infrastructure and apparent efficiency, compared to Ireland at the same time,” writes the Irish newspaper. But since then, he believes his native country has largely caught up, even surpassing Germany in several respects.
The reason, according to Stephen Hurley, whose words were summed up in The Irish Times , is “long years of austerity policies and underinvestment [which] have seen infrastructure standards decline as much as those of education.” According to the executive, “most of the bridges that cross the Rhine are dilapidated. […] Things have clearly deteriorated” in Germany.
After the "debt brake" of the Merkel years, the new conservative chancellor Friedrich Merz has committed his coalition government to an unprecedented debt of 846.9 billion euros by 2029 to finance investments. In a difficult economic situation, Germany could even "become the 'sick man of Europe,' " warns Oliver Bäte, CEO of Allianz, in the columns of the Financial Times . "Our healthcare system could collapse within a decade," warns the big boss.
Stephen Hurley is so integrated into German society that he even shares its pessimism, he jokes in The Irish Times . The Dublin newspaper sums up his view of things thus: “Germans are inclined to see things in a negative light and look back, but in reality things are not so bad. Living standards are very high for most people and the economy is robust. The hope is that the new government will keep its ambitious promises on investment and improve infrastructure.”
