2023-06-15 18:52:10
Zu bureaucratic, too complicated and simply not competitive compared to the rest of the world: That is the picture that well-known entrepreneurs, association representatives and managers paint of the European Union. The President of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA), Rainer Dulger, summed up his gloomy findings with the impressive formula: “The EU market loses importance with every day that dawns – even though it is actually the largest single market in the world”, he said on Thursday at the European Economic Conference in Berlin, a two-day event that the FAZ is organizing together with the European School of Management and Technology. The EU’s share of global gross domestic product has been falling for more than a decade. “We’re not as attractive as we think we are and we’re not as good as we think we are.”
Dissatisfaction is also spreading among young entrepreneurs. “We have always looked positively to the future. We always believed that we could do it,” said Laura Jorde, National Manager, Wirtschaftsjunioren Germany. But now young entrepreneurs are looking at Germany and Europe as a business location with pessimism because not much has changed in recent years, she said, listing: bureaucracy, a lack of digitization and the lack of skilled workers.
“Strategic competitiveness must be back in focus”
Dulger criticized that the European Commission and Parliament had not yet recognized the bad state of the EU – and above all not with the necessary urgency. The basic program of the European Commission dates from 2019, i.e. from a time before the corona pandemic, before the Ukraine war and before the energy crisis. “Europe continues to follow the Green Deal paradigm without taking these things into account,” said the Employers’ President. “I do not underestimate climate protection,” he clarified. “But we have reached a point where strategic competitiveness must come back into focus.” This must be accompanied by concrete legislative measures. “It has to be simpler, less complicated, not only here in Germany, but also in Europe.” After the elections to the EU Parliament next year, the next EU Commission must concentrate on competitiveness again.
The automotive industry already sees the consequences of this policy in its own competitiveness in Asia. China is promoting its automotive industry wherever possible, while Europe, with new regulations such as the Euro 7 emissions standard, is creating one “bureaucratic monster” after the other: This mixture would force German car manufacturers out of the Chinese market, warned Uwe Hochschurtz, Chief Operating Officer of Stellantis, the car company that also has Opel under its roof.
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