Business must commit to Europe

The BDI President Dieter Kempf calls on the German economy to position itself clearly on the advantages of the European Union: „We must make it clearer how much all people profit from the EU on a daily basis,“ said Kempf on the occasion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. „The economy must audibly declare its support for an open Europe,“ emphasized Kempf with a view to the elections to the European Parliament in 2019.

„We in industry are proud Europeans,“ Kempf announced. „The EU is and remains the most successful political project of our time.“ It is one of the world's strongest economic areas and a unique network for mutual benefit.

„The road back to nationalism is a dead end,“ warned Kempf. „Neither left nor right-wing populism solves problems, it just exacerbates them,“ he said. „Security, migration, growth, jobs, globalization, climate change: We Europeans can only do that together. Europe is not the problem but the solution. Protectionism and populism are no solutions to European challenges.“

For German companies, the entire EU is now the home market. Almost 60 percent of exports and just over 40 percent of direct investments go to the EU. Around three quarters of all wholesale imports in EU countries come from within the EU. This intraregional share is not this high anywhere else in the world according to the BDI.

Peace through economic cooperation was the reason for the creation of the EU over 60 years ago, underlined Kempf. The EU member states would have to prove that the EU can protect and promote its citizens as an open political system. A turnaround towards political and economic foreclosure should not be tolerated.