(Bloomberg) — A majority of German executives think the European Union has lost attractiveness as a place for doing business, according to a new survey by the DIHK industry lobby.
Some 56% of the 3,000 German firms polled signaled that the EU’s competitiveness as a business location has deteriorated over the past five years, while only 7% see an improvement.
“Despite its fundamentally good starting position, Europe is in danger of losing ground in international competition,” DIHK Managing Director Martin Wansleben said Wednesday in an emailed statement. “This trend must be stopped immediately.”
Manufacturing companies have a particularly negative opinion: Two thirds say business conditions have deteriorated in recent years, citing rising costs primarily due to high energy prices. Excessive bureaucracy and trade barriers are additional factors behind their downbeat verdict.
“We have to see which bureaucracy can be removed and become faster in doing this,” Franziska Brantner, a deputy German economy minister, said Tuesday when asked how to make Europe more competitive.
Speaking at an event in Berlin organized by Germany’s BDI industry lobby, she added that “we have a single market that is not yet good enough — the next commission must tackle this integration.”
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