The foundation stone is to be laid today, by Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, for Volkswagen's luxury car plant in the heart of Dresden. The "factory of glass" is a controversial project, with almost 17,000 local citizens signing a petition against it and politicians from the environmentalist Greens and the former communist Party of Democratic Socialism opposed to it. Even Dresden's city council, desperate to boost employment in an area where nearly 1 in 5 is jobless, mustered only a two-thirds majority behind the venture. Such mixed feelings have not prevented VW turning the ceremony into a massive media event. For Europe's biggest carmaker, its striking new "factory of glass" is another example of a corporate strategy designed to test the conventional, whatever the cost.
