Magdeburger disappointed about Intel’s exit: “You feel like you’ve been ripped off”

It is a sunny September day and Magdeburg is collectively sighing. It seems like they have been holding their breath for ages and now – the air has simply gone out of them. Chip manufacturer Intel has announced that it is putting the planned mega factory on the outskirts of the city on hold for the time being. Neither the 3,000 new jobs nor the new roads will be built – everything will stay the same. And names have already been invented for the region. There was talk of a high-tech cluster. But in the end Magdeburg remains Magdeburg. And most Magdeburgers just shrug their shoulders at this news.

Only a few days ago, Intel received the first building permit, and now the US company wants to postpone the start of construction by two years or – according to many Magdeburg residents you meet that day – call off the project altogether.

Preparations have already been made on the huge wasteland where the factories are supposed to be built one day: the former fields have been leveled, a construction sign casts large shadows on the asphalt access road. On the construction site of the huge power substation, which is being built especially for the new Intel factories, a few excavators are turning their arms on this day too. A truck maneuvers through the high piles of sand, weeds are growing in the wide fields to the right and left. It is quite peaceful here: not a soul to be seen, not a cloud in the sky, just the noise of the nearby A14.

One might think that this calm is deceptive; the people of Magdeburg must be seething with anger or at least mourning this project, which had created a long-awaited spirit of optimism in the former industrial city and which hardly anyone now believes in. The people in the pedestrian zone in Magdeburg are above all disappointed and unsure of what will happen next. Until Intel snaps its fingers again, Magdeburg is hanging in the balance.

Ottersleben local association very disappointed about Intel exit

Kurt Petzerling pulls up the shutters of the clubhouse of the Ottersleben local history society. The district on the edge of which the Intel factories are planned is still reminiscent of the village it was in the GDR era. Next door is the “Hans Wurst” butcher’s shop, large oak trees and only the occasional car rattling along the cobblestone street. Every year they hold a festival here, to which several high-ranking Intel representatives have turned up in the past two years. But this year they stayed away.

“It speaks volumes when you no longer dare to go to the citizens and answer their questions,” says Petzerling. He was born in Ottersleben and is chairman of the local association. “When you then back out so quietly and secretly, the disappointment is very, very great.” Wearing a wine-red shirt, he sits at an old wooden table, decorated with an artificial hydrangea, with the blue, white and green club flag behind him. “That sounds a bit drastic, but you feel like you’re being fooled,” says Petzerling. “The red carpet was rolled out for Intel here and they were happy to walk on it. They never expressed any doubts about the project to the outside world.”

Nevertheless, Petzerling is not surprised that the start of construction has been postponed. The delays and the pending approval by the European Union (EU) for the almost 10 billion euros in federal funding have made him and many others in Magdeburg skeptical in recent weeks.

Magdeburg residents not surprised by delay

“It was obvious,” says a man in his mid-fifties, whom we meet in the pedestrian zone in the afternoon. He has his arms crossed in front of his chest. “I’m neither disappointed nor angry, I’m a realist.” He doesn’t expect construction to start in two years either.

A woman from Magdeburg says that her employer has already created a separate project and new positions to support Intel in the construction. Now they don’t know what will happen with the funding. The news of the postponement shocked her and her colleagues, although they had already suspected it after the media reports of the past few weeks.

“I think it’s a shame because I had hoped it would do a lot for the region, for our standard of living here,” says another woman who is pushing her shopping home on her bike. “Magdeburg has been doing well recently. Now the sceptics will regain the upper hand.”

Of course, some people had reservations about what such a large company, including traffic, new housing developments and roads, would do to the city. And yet Intel was warmly welcomed, says Petzerling from the local history association. “The general mood now is not one of relief, but rather disillusionment,” he says. “Resignation” is there. After all, the project would have brought East Germany and Germany as a whole forward. He quickly comes to the fundamental question: “Where is Germany actually heading economically?”

Mayor Borris believes construction will start in two years

In Magdeburg, however, the questions are much more concrete: What should happen now with the roads, some of which are already being expanded, with entrepreneurs who have specialized in the housing sector or created extra jobs just because of Intel? What about the small settlement in the middle of the fields, where people have long since had to move out of their houses and which are now actually supposed to be demolished? What should happen in the next two years and what if it was all for nothing?

“I am sure that Intel will come to us in the future,” said Magdeburg’s non-partisan mayor Simone Borris on Tuesday. The property is so unique in Germany that it will still be attractive for Intel in two years. “I cannot be disappointed because it is not a 100 percent rejection,” said Borris. “I find it understandable that Intel needs time due to its economic situation and the overall economic situation in Germany.” She is still optimistic. Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Rainer Haseloff (CDU) had previously expressed similar views.

Borris herself heard the news on Monday evening. She was informed after Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Prime Minister Haseloff, and she also received the internal Intel letter to employees. She does not expect her city to suffer any financial losses as a result, as the state will ultimately pay for everything. The question is whether the state’s funding will be maintained.

Either way, she does not consider the projects that have already been initiated to be “superfluous” and assumes that the major construction projects, such as residential projects, will continue in Magdeburg. However, discussions in the coming months will have to show how the individual parts of the project will proceed. It is also still unclear what will happen to the so-called high-tech park, where Intel suppliers are supposed to settle.

Entrepreneurs want planning security

The local Chamber of Industry and Commerce finds the news “very regrettable” and is clinging to the hope that construction will begin in two years. Planning security is important for companies directly involved in the construction and operation of the factories. “Regardless of this, we must not lapse into a state of shock, but continue to promote and shape the framework conditions and the attractiveness of the location for our local economy and investors,” appeal Klaus Olbricht and André Rummel from the Magdeburg Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

An Intel spokeswoman told Capital that although the project has been paused, the company would like to continue to work closely with local partners such as the city, the employment agency and the universities. “Things are being evaluated and we will try to keep the potential impact as low as possible in exchange with our partners,” said the spokeswoman. The collaboration was excellent from the start and was driven by a special spirit of optimism. Intel even created a special project team on site that will be based in an office in the city center. Apart from a small sticker on the mailbox and a neighbor who no one introduced herself to, there is not much to see of it.

The spirit of optimism has given way to uncertainty for now, even though Mayor Borris has announced that the city will “not stand still.” “We have to try to keep the spirit going,” she says. If push comes to shove, the city of Magdeburg has a right of first refusal for the land of the Intel factories, even though Borris does not want to comment on a plan B.

The local association sees the future as less rosy. “This is a farewell in installments,” says Petzerling. They would prefer a clear yes or no. Perhaps in two years’ time they will be happy if a factory actually stands there – but until then the Ottersleben residents remain skeptical.