BusinessEurope and the Federation of German Industries (BDI)

IVK supports their call on the E.U. European institutions to focus on the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis:

BusinessEurope statement: Responsibility, Action and Solidarity is urgently required to protect businesses, society and our economy
BusinessEurope message to the European Council 

The present coronavirus crisis has shifted the focus of our work to various other issues. Especially IVK has to react very quickly to fast-moving political initiatives and legislation and simultaneously re-organise co-operation digitally. This means the workload is high at the moment.

With respect to the coronavirus crisis, I would like to share a letter from the German Branch of Business Europe (BDI) together with Business Europe sent yesterday to the European institutions see links below. In this letter, BDI and Business Europe call on the European institutions to concentrate all efforts on essential actions to mitigate the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, putting on hold E.U. initiatives that could increase costs for companies or divert resources away from the fight against COVID-19, and to postpone non-essential public consultations at E.U. level.

Citation from the letter to President Charles Michel:

“The crisis comes at a moment where the European institutions are working out a series of important new initiatives in a wide range of policy fields. Overcoming the COVID-19 crisis will require the mobilisation of all energies and resources in a dramatic effort. It is unavoidable that the scope and timeframe of some of the new initiatives will be substantially affected by the unprecedented timeframe of some of the new initiatives will be substantially affected by the unprecedented challenges our societies and businesses are facing. Therefore, we urge you not to press on with these initiatives as if nothing has happened. A more comprehensive picture of the newly emerging situation and its consequences is required to determine how the new initiatives can be implemented. Avoiding additional burdens on enterprises is absolutely essential to make sure that as many businesses as possible survive and to allow our economy and society as a whole to recover more rapidly once the health crisis is overcome.

Several member states have already clearly announced that they will focus on the essential and put other important initiatives on hold. For example, in France, President Macron announced that he would suspend ongoing discussions on pending reforms such as the pension reform. In Spain, the government decided to postpone a range of on-going initiatives which were Subject to public consultations.

BusinessEurope calls on the European institutions to follow a similar approach and to concentrate all efforts on essential actions to mitigate the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, putting on hold EU initiatives that could increase costs for companies or divert resources away from the fight against COVID-19 and postpone non-essential public consultations at EU level. Stakeholders face many practical difficulties to respond for practical reasons. Furthermore, the impact of the crisis means that there will be eventually a need for additional reflection on some proposals.”

We at IVK also think that our industry will not be able to bear any significant additional costs as a side effect of new legislative initiatives (e.g. the planned microplastic restriction), and that this fact should be a strong argument in future discussions and advocacy.

Therefore IVK strongly supports the BDI/Business Europe initiative and has asked FEICA to do the same.