Bureaucracy, home office, medium-sized businesses: Entrepreneurs harass members of the Bundestag

Created: 04/02/2022, 18:00

By: Tobias Gmach

At the panel discussion in "La Villa" in Niederpöcking, good humor and factual toughness prevailed.

In the picture (from left): moderator Matthias Vilsmayer, Michael Kießling (CSU), moderator Michael Padberg, Carmen Wegge (SPD), Dieter Janecek (Greens) and Thomas Sattelberger (FDP).

© Andrea Jaksch

Home office, bureaucracy, strengthening SMEs: entrepreneurs had many questions to four members of the Bundestag at the panel discussion on Lake Starnberg.

They didn't always have concrete answers.

Niederpöcking – Four members of the Bundestag from the region were brought together by the Starnberg District Business Development Association (UWS) on Thursday on a podium: Carmen Wegge (SPD), Michael Kießling (CSU), Dieter Janecek (Greens) and Dr.

Thomas Sattelberger (FDP) sat on the wicker chairs in the winter garden of "La Villa" in Niederpöcking.

And they were confronted with the entrepreneurs' specific wishes.

They read: Strengthen small and medium-sized businesses, reduce bureaucracy, give us freedom when working from home and please finally reform the pension system.

At the beginning, UWS chairman and moderator Michael Padberg sounded out the positions on the subject of working from home.

In his company (PTC Telecom in Wörthsee) there has been the possibility for 20 years - "but where it is needed".

In the pandemic, Padberg is afraid that “employees will become socially impoverished”.

Next to him, most of the 50 or so entrepreneurs in the room were probably against a legal right for employees to work from home.

SPD MP Wegge is in favor.

"But we don't want to pull people out of the plants 24/7." It's about three days a month.

Wegge sees a greater compatibility of work and family with the home office.

Janecek is also in favor of legal rights, but also does not want “an economy that only communicates on screens”.

Sattelberger prefers an obligation on the employer to justify

if they do not allow mobile working.

Kießling is clearly against the legal claim, especially as he believes it would lead to "even more bureaucracy".

Speaking of which: UWS Vice Chairman Matthias Vilsmayer called the bureaucracy “an economic obstacle in the region”.

Padberg was even clearer: “We now have almost two employees who only deal with bureaucracy.

That's perverted.

That costs us money and competitiveness.

Wilhelm Boneberger, FDP parliamentary group leader in the district council and operator of a bakery in Gilching, later intervened from the audience: “The topic has a much stronger impact on small and medium-sized companies, so we are worse off than large corporations.

We all see the middle class disappear.

Then why is only industrial policy being made?”

The pitfalls of the flexible working world

The politicians could hardly reply with any encouragement to these three requests to speak.

Cutting bureaucracy sounds good, but it's incredibly difficult, said Kießling.

"We need to take more responsibility.

Digitization can help,” he added.

Wegge sounded similar: “It will never work in Germany without bureaucracy.

She mentioned the register modernization law and the online access law, which are likely to simplify official administration.

Janecek was also not directly targeting entrepreneurs when he mentioned the halving of planning times for infrastructure measures.

Padberg thinks that the strong regulation of politics no longer fits with the flexible world of work.

Sattelberger admitted that the traffic light's coalition agreement "doesn't give much" in this regard.

You have to talk about a third employment category in addition to self-employed and employed.

Wegge urged caution at this point.

"Flexible working models must not lead to people being left with nothing in retirement."