German Freight Forwarders Fear Excessive Bureaucracy

In light of the upcoming legislative period, the DSLV Federal Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics warns that entrepreneurial performance capacity will increasingly be constrained by overregulation and bureaucracy. Laws aimed at improving climate protection, employee co-determination, data protection, and the observance of human rights address fundamentally correct issues from the DSLV’s perspective, but politics is imposing ever-increasing administrative burdens on businesses.

(Berlin) At a Logistics Talk during the DSLV’s general assembly on June 10, 2021, DSLV President Axel Plaß appealed to members of parliament from the CDU, SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens, and FDP: “The high entrepreneurial responsibility undoubtedly includes a social and societal component alongside the economic one. Action and liability lie in one hand. However, this important fundamental principle of the social market economy is increasingly becoming unbalanced. Business owners, who are accountable for the company’s direction, must continue to hold the reins.”

Germany’s Advance

At a time when employers and employees are experiencing fundamentally positive feedback and resulting high acceptance among companies, the federal government wants to introduce a law enforcing an employee’s right to home office, reversing the burden of proof against the employer. Instead of jointly advancing an EU-wide solution for strengthening human rights, labor protection regulations, and environmental protection in global supply chains and service relationships, Germany is now taking the lead with a national Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. Larger German logistics companies will have to establish a global risk analysis and monitoring system involving their transport service providers starting January 1, 2023 – often without sufficient data and in competition with logistics companies from other nations that are not affected by this.

Contradictory Legislator

Plaß: “The legislator behaves contradictorily. On the one hand, it increasingly bases its activities on general suspicion and a lack of trust in the self-responsibility of the economy – on the other hand, it is increasingly delegating sovereign monitoring tasks, particularly for compliance with social standards, from the state to companies. Instead of tightening official control intensities and consistently punishing black sheep, new laws are being enacted. It is not just about costs for businesses; they often suffer from administrative burdens.” It remains to be seen how the federal government of the next legislative period will enforce the politically decided climate protection goals. Plaß: “Considerations for a climate policy planned economy and for relocation dirigisme are misplaced. Instead, the logistics industry relies on incentives, particularly on the continuation of already initiated funding programs.” And finally: “Politics must orient itself to what is feasible in all societal issues – then it will also receive the full support of the freight forwarding industry.”
Photo: © Loginfo24/Adobe Stock