Cottbus Becomes the Hope of Lusatia – Billions Aimed at Creating New Jobs

Cottbus is increasingly moving to the center of the question in Lusatia of how to cushion the economic impact of phasing out lignite. New key figures and political interpretations were brought together at the East German Economic Forum (OWF) in Bad Saarow: The region is to exit lignite by 2038 – and simultaneously build new employment in medicine, research, and industry.

Jobs as a Benchmark for Structural Change

The expected employment effects are at the center of the debate. The Innovation Center of the University Medicine Lusatia is considered a particularly visible project, with around 3,500 jobs mentioned. Whether and how quickly these positions are created will crucially depend on how quickly development, financing, recruitment, and permanent operation actually take hold – essentially, whether the project results not only in infrastructure but also in a stable employer landscape with research, care, and follow-up investments.

Innovation Center of the University Medicine Lusatia

The Innovation Center of the University Medicine Lusatia is expected to create around 3,500 jobs. The decisive factor is whether development, financing, recruitment, and permanent operation actually take hold and a stable employer landscape emerges in the long term.

ICE Maintenance Plant of Deutsche Bahn

A second industrial anchor is the ICE maintenance plant of Deutsche Bahn. About 1,600 jobs in the rail industry and in supplier companies are being promised for this.

For the region, this would be more than just a number: Especially in former coal and energy locations, it is considered central whether new industrial jobs not only arise in the short term but also develop their own dynamic through contracts, qualification, and local supply chains.

Hospital in Cottbus

The fact that Cottbus already has a significant base as a medical location plays an important role in this narrative. The largest hospital in Brandenburg in Cottbus has about 1,200 beds and combines care with research and teaching.

In the logic of structural change, this is a locational advantage: Where clinical practice, training, and research are interlinked, the chance increases to retain skilled workers, build new profiles, and anchor innovations locally.

Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU)

The Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU) is highlighted as the third pillar, which holds a special role as the only university of its kind in the state.

The decisive factor here is less the label than the practical effect: Universities can accelerate structural change when research focuses, spin-offs, transfer to companies, and the training of suitable specialists come together – and when the region remains attractive enough not to lose graduates.

Billions as a Framework – and as a Test

The transformation is closely tied to government funding. Around ten billion euros have been invested in Lusatia by the EU, federal government, and state. This sum marks the scale at which structural change is to be politically secured – but it is also a test for implementation: The larger the funding pots, the more important priorities, schedules, governance, and the question of whether projects are sustainable instead of petering out after a start-up phase become.

Against this background, Brandenburg's Minister of Economic Affairs Martina Klement pointed to special funding conditions in the region: "... we have different government funding opportunities in this region than in other regions." Such instruments can facilitate investments and encourage settlements.

However, for the assessment of structural change, what ultimately counts is whether funding leads to an independent economic base – that is, jobs that remain, companies that grow without permanent support, and value creation that is anchored regionally.

OWF and the Political Narrative of the East as a Transformation Engine

At the East German Economic Forum, Cottbus also became a symbol in a larger growth debate: What role can East Germany play for the overall German economic dynamic? Chancellor Friedrich Merz referred to this and pointed to the transformation experience of the East German states.

"You here in the East German states may even know this better than the West German states, where the last major experience of such a fundamental transformation is now over 75 years ago," he said. He also argued that East Germans had already proven after the fall of the Wall that they can cope with upheavals.

This interpretation is clearly aimed at describing East Germany not only as a recipient of aid but as an area that can draw economic impetus from upheavals. Cottbus is suitable as a projection surface for this because large public investments, university location, medicine, and industrial projects are bundled there.

But this is also where the limit of the success story lies: So far, the transformation has been largely supported by public funds and political framework setting. Whether a permanently self-sustaining economic area will emerge from this is not a final finding, but an open expectation. The decisive factor will be whether the announced employment effects actually occur, whether they become permanent – and whether a network of companies, suppliers, services, and start-ups grows from the flagship projects that stabilizes Lusatia economically beyond the coal phase-out.