At the Entrepreneurs' Day in Berlin, politicians have to listen to a lot: the dissatisfaction of company managers is great. In companies, people feel ignored, unheard and misunderstood – for example when it comes to the topic of regulation.
Stephan Fincke walks through a huge company hall. From small brushes to large cleaning machines, everything a specialist wholesaler for hygiene products needs is stored there. In addition to selling these goods, the almost 50 employees also develop hygiene concepts for medical facilities and food businesses.
Fincke is the boss of the company in Bassenheim near Koblenz. “The economy is in crisis. Our industry has also had a harder time since Corona, as many employees often work from home and companies therefore have less demand,” explains Fincke. “Nevertheless, we will make a profit this year. That makes me happy in these difficult times.”
“Only specialists have insight”
Nevertheless, Fincke is increasingly frustrated when it comes to bureaucracy: “The mass of laws are now overwhelming,” he explains. In terms of the goal, regulations to protect the environment and personnel make sense, but the detailed requirements and practical implementation are becoming increasingly complicated.
“A small company like us finds it increasingly difficult to implement this with its staff and financial resources,” says Fincke. The managing director mentions, for example, the General Data Protection Regulation or the Packaging Act. “We were only able to implement this with additional legal support from outside. It is highly complex and only specialists have an understanding of it.”
“The mass of laws is now overwhelming,” says entrepreneur Stephan Fincke. He urgently wants an effective reduction in bureaucracy.
Simply overwhelmed by the legal situation
The Supply Chain Due Diligence Act is currently causing problems for the company. With almost 50 employees, the company is not formally affected by the law, as it only applies to a size of 1,000 employees. But customers expected the evidence.
“We get all the confirmations from our suppliers. But here in Bassenheim we can’t find out what’s really happening on site somewhere in the world,” admits Fincke and gives an example: “We have batteries in our cleaning machines. But how can we “We know under what circumstances the raw materials were mined?”
The ever new requirements not only cost the company nerves, but also a lot of money. Fincke estimates the annual expenses for processing and managing the regulations to be significantly more than 100,000 euros. And the company then lacks this money for its actual task – economic activity.
Well-intentioned forest protection creates new problems
And the next bureaucracy booster is coming soon: the planned EU deforestation regulation is intended to make the destruction of forests more difficult. Specifically, companies should submit a due diligence declaration stating that no forest was cleared or damaged for their product after December 31, 2020. Anyone who does not comply with the regulations must expect penalties of at least four percent of their annual turnover in the EU.
The regulation comes into force at the turn of the year. But even the federal government is calling for a delay because much is still unclear. “The goal is right,” says Fincke. “But how are we supposed to commit to this when even the Green Federal Agriculture Minister Özdemir says that the regulation cannot be implemented like this?”
Hardly any trust in politics anymore
From Bassenheim, Fincke is following today's Entrepreneur Day of the Federal Association of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA) in Berlin. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck are also guests there. You have to be prepared for a lot of criticism. According to the BGA, the mood in the industry has reached an all-time low. It bases this on a current survey among its members.
Among other things, the bureaucratic requirements are now a massive disadvantage for the location, BGA President Dirk Jandura replied to a query from tagesschau.de. “Many of the new reporting requirements cannot be implemented sensibly.” It is a paradise for NGOs and law firms who are keen to sue. “Instead of bureaucratic proliferation through different formats and systems, we need a uniform, standardized data format for all reporting obligations, fed from one source.” demands Jandura.
Small and medium-sized companies in particular are affected
According to BGA information, 98 percent of wholesale and foreign trade are small and medium-sized companies. They did not have the financial and human resources to meet the growing requirements. “According to the current BGA economic survey, almost 90 percent are calling for efforts to be made to reduce bureaucracy and cost burdens. According to our information, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in particular, but also the potential successor generation, are wondering whether the effort and risks are still worth it,” explains Jandura.
The BGA President therefore criticizes the traffic light government: political impulses were missing or too little. In order to get the economy going again, the BGA is also calling for more trade agreements. In addition, the maintenance and expansion of the infrastructure in Germany as an international logistics hub must be ensured. “The poor infrastructure puts a strain on exporters in two areas in particular: delivery times and costs. Delivery dates often cannot be met,” explains Jandura.
Little hope for that Bureaucracy Relief Act
Bureaucracy also causes problems for Stephan Fincke and his team in other places: the company is based in an industrial area. Although it is urgently needed and has been repeatedly requested by entrepreneurs in politics and administration for several years, there has so far been no fiber optic connection there. The cables have now been laid, but the connection for operation is still missing, says Fincke. After submitting the application, the company also had to wait around a year and a half for the photovoltaic system to finally get started.
The Bundestag passed the Bureaucracy Relief Act last week. This is intended to relieve the economy of around 944 million euros annually. The law includes more than 60 individual measures. When asked whether his company's measures will help, Fincke raises his eyebrows: “The retention period for documents will be shortened from ten to eight years. The documents are stored digitally on the server. What's the point of that now?” asks the entrepreneur .
“I recently saw a television report on the topic. Rudolph Scharping from the SPD promised less bureaucracy in the 1990s, and so did many after him from all political camps. And now let's look at how we stand today.”
