Before a meeting of the business associations with Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier, there is great concern that easing will be a long way off.
The discussion about tightening epidemic policy is causing a depressive mood among hundreds of thousands of companies and self-employed people in Germany. Regardless of whether you are an innkeeper, hotel manager, fitness studio operator or shopkeeper – normality is far away for all of them. And it could move even further if the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister is Armin Laschet and Chancellor Angela Merkel (both CDU) and shut down the country even more than before. That is the starting point for a meeting of numerous business associations with the responsible minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) on Thursday.
“We finally need political solutions that with and despite Corona Guarantee a maximum of public life, leisure and mobility ”, demanded the President of the Tourism Association, Michael Frenzel, in an interview with our editorial team. He has careful openings in his eye – for vaccinated people or with a negative corona test.
But the model tests in Saarland and in Lower Saxony Laschet, Merkel and CSU boss Markus Söder consider the virus mutation and more infections to be too risky. The sectors affected by the closure cannot come close to the proponents of sealing and have to be content with complaining to Altmaier of their suffering.
Travel industry calls for extended crisis aid
The Minister of Economic Affairs honestly tries to help the corona losers, but has little to say about corona politics. Therefore, at the previous round in mid-February, the associations urged him to get a meeting with the Chancellor. But they didn’t get it. So they have to direct their demands back to Altmaier, who will pass them on to the head of government. This also includes more financial support from the state if business has to rest longer. “We are calling for the bridging aid to be extended beyond June 30,” said Frenzel. Because it is foreseeable “that it will take a while until we can get back to a more or less normal business in the tourism industry”.
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The travel industry is particularly hard hit by the lockdown.
Image: Jens Büttner, dpa
Just last week the federal government increased the bridging aid and decided to grant equity capital to particularly troubled companies. The improved state aid is intended to protect companies from bankruptcy. After the disbursement of the funds had started slowly in the past few months, the authorities have been able to increase the pace. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, over 13 billion euros have now been transferred to the companies. It remains to be seen whether that will be enough to avoid a wave of bankruptcies. The notification requirement for bankruptcies is suspended until the end of April.
The economic politician Pascal Meiser from the Left Party demanded that the exception be extended again as soon as possible because of the poor prospects for entire branches of the economy. “If the obligation to file for insolvency is fully implemented again, a devastating and completely superfluous wave of insolvency threatens from May 1st, solely due to the failures of the Federal Ministry of Economics,” said Meiser to our editorial team. The inadequate preparation for the second wave that began in autumn and the slow implementation of the Corona aid programs should not be at the expense of the companies concerned.
Companies reject compulsory corona testing
Another topic of the meeting with Altmaier will be the obligation to test for companies. So far, federal and state governments have been reluctant to require companies to have their employees tested for corona. Companies are skeptical of a duty. The argument: you couldn’t force your employees to smear them. In addition, they assert delivery problems during tests.
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The companies want to do it on their own, but without a state obligation: Corona tests for employees
Image: Ralf Lienert
If there was an obligation and a company could not get enough tests or had many rejecters in its own ranks, work might have to be stopped. According to a survey by the employers’ association BDA, however, between 80 and 90 percent of companies are already testing or are about to start testing.
Because of the fight against what is now the third wave and the slow progress in vaccination, economic experts expect a significantly weaker economic recovery with growth of around 3 percent for the current year. In autumn, the forecasts were still on a plus of five percent.
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