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SSuddenly the horror gave way to a sigh of relief: barely Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) revoked the so-called Easter break, which had been decided and announced the day before, on Wednesday, when the relief in the economy was literally palpable. . “Better a horror with an ending than the other way around,” said Foreign Trade President Anton Börner. It was “brave” “to admit this wrong decision and correct it immediately.” The German Trade Association (HDE) called the withdrawal from the Easter break as a “sign of reason.” The association of mechanical engineers also spoke of a “good sign”. Several trade representatives called for priority to be given to intensifying testing and vaccination activities.
The Crown summit had decided Tuesday night to declare Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday as “days of rest.” Only grocery shopping should be possible on Holy Saturday. The large-scale shutdown of public and private life should take off the pandemic in light of the growing number of infections and the more contagious British variant of the virus.
But the implementation of the break, for example in labor law, remained completely unclear. Controversy immediately arose as to whether rest days should be considered vacations, whether surcharges were due and how they should be handled at the head office.
Supply to supermarkets would have been compromised
Impacts on the real economy, such as maintaining supply chains or supplying food to the population, were also not sufficiently considered. The smooth delivery of groceries and everyday items to supermarkets threatened to be paralyzed for a short time. HDE stated that the short-term provision of the Easter rest period could have caused “serious problems” for food logistics.
Specifically, the logistics of the supermarket chains and discount stores feared greater difficulties to fill the shelves due to the expected avalanche of customers on Holy Saturday and after the Easter holidays when the stores open in the morning, given the limited capacities of transportation and storage in stores and the lack of clarity about the rest days to be observed for employees in the storage area as expected by customers.
In some cases, contingency plans were forged, according to the industry. Full store shelves have been one of the most important confidence-building measures for the population since the outbreak of the epidemic. Meanwhile, Edeka, as rival Rewe, ensured that the supply was guaranteed at all times.
The auto industry is conciliatory
“With today’s decision, a little common sense is coming back to Corona politics,” said HDE CEO Stefan Genth. If the food trade had been closed on Holy Thursday, as initially planned, a greater number of customers would have been expected in the days before and after. In the pandemic, on the contrary, it is about equalizing the flow of customers.
This is one of the reasons why it is a wise decision to withdraw the Easter rest period and allow the food trade to open on Holy Thursday as well. For the retail sectors affected by the prolonged lockdown, Genth once again called for quick corona help and an opening outlook.
Business representatives harshly criticized the short-lived idea of the Easter rest period, but the Chancellor also received praise for the rapid turnaround. Edeka’s boss, Markus Mosa, spoke of a “powerful and courageous decision.” After the withdrawal of the Chancellor, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) was massively disarmed.
VDA President Hildegard Müller praised the chancellor’s apology on Wednesday, while key industry still used Tuesday night’s automotive summit to make clear to the government that rest days with plant shutdowns “are not. doable “on such short notice. “It’s great to admit a mistake,” he said.
“Night bug fixed”
Employer President Rainer Dulger, who had also violently attacked the government on Tuesday, was now conciliatory. “There is no plan to handle this crisis,” he said. “As an employer, I had to make many decisions, some of which were difficult. It’s hard “. It respects that the decision on the Easter rest has been reviewed.
It is true that the Federal Chancellor and Prime Minister took the advice seriously and “corrected their overnight mistake,” said Stefan Heidbreder, Managing Director of the Family Business Foundation.
The idea of a day off, however, was “an imposition on German family businesses.” Because companies are often tied to delivery commitments within a tight time frame and therefore dependent on planned business days. The mechanical engineering association VDMA also complained about the threat of negative effects on supply and supply chains due to the short-term nature of the measures.
Respect for reversing
The president of foreign trade, Börner, called for a more progressive culture of debate in the future: “It is now important that politicians seek the advice of those affected before making a decision.” Companies needed a clear and reliable plan to continue fighting the pandemic. . Thilo Brodtmann, director of the VDMA, was conciliatory. Reason prevailed in a difficult situation.
“In principle, the dialogue between politics and business also works under the pressure of the corona pandemic,” he said. Companies now save having to pay additional costs for days off. According to calculations by the Institute of German Economics (IW) in Cologne, an extra day of rest costs the economy around seven billion euros.
Brodtmann also showed respect to the Chancellor for the withdrawal, and Peter Kurth, director of the waste management association BDE, made a similar judgment. He saw it as “a sign of strength to admit a mistake and take responsibility.” At the same time, he underlined the urgency of the U-turn. The idea that for five days in a row there could be no waste disposal in the whole of Germany caused horror in municipalities and companies: “A vital service infrastructure could not have been managed like this.”
The experience of the chambers of industry and commerce shows how perplexed was how to deal with an “Easter break” between companies. The IHK Berlin, for example, reported hundreds of calls from outraged businessmen seeking advice on its Corona hotline. Other chambers also received numerous inquiries from businessmen.
