Monday, May 24, 2021
Ten point plan
Industry wants to end the home office obligation
With the relaxation of the Corona situation, German industry is pushing for easing. The employees should again show their presence at the workplace, and the obligation to test should also be dropped there. Travel should also become more possible again. However, the state should not let go of the aid yet.
The Federal Association of German Industry (BDI) calls for an end to the home office and blanket testing obligation in companies. This emerges from a ten-point plan submitted by the industry association to the federal government, from which the Funke media group reports. “The vaccination progress in society and companies must be linked to a parallel return to normal business operations,” says the paper.
BDI President Siegfried Russwurm criticized the competition between the federal states with various opening strategies. “This unsystematic approach to ramping up economic activity increases uncertainty and reduces the ability to plan.” Rather, what is needed is a consistent opening strategy that includes the entirety of the German economy and its employees. “The federal government must better synchronize the return to normalcy of society and the economy.” The aim must be to open up the economy and society, which is epidemiologically responsible.
The BDI therefore called for a step-by-step plan that stipulates how the corona protective measures imposed in the companies can be reduced and abolished. The increasing number of vaccinated and recovered employees is the benchmark.
In addition, the BDI is urging that travel be made possible to a greater extent than before. The “existing patchwork of approaches” by which states have been regulating travel around the world would adversely affect business travel and economic recovery, the report said. “For the free movement of goods and goods, border crossings must be made unbureaucratic and smooth for all modes of transport, and entry restrictions must be dismantled based on evidence.” For this, among other things, the blanket test verification requirement in air traffic should be dropped, as it complicates the processes.
The association is putting pressure on the topic of digitization. Data protection should not remain an “absolute dogma”, while other basic freedoms would be massively restricted, the media group quotes from the paper. In order to make business trips possible in a timely manner, the industry association insists on the introduction of a digital European vaccination pass.
In order to support the economy, the BDI continues to call for an expansion of tax loss offsetting and better depreciation conditions. The Corona aid measures should also not end prematurely. In addition, from June 1, company doctors would have to be fully involved in the federal government’s vaccination strategy and provided with sufficient vaccination doses. According to newspaper reports, the BDI clearly rejects the controversial release of the vaccine patents. As a lesson from the pandemic, the BDI is already calling for a protection concept that can be used to respond to future pandemics.
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