Things are rumbling in the craft industry. The fact that there are no mass protests is also due to association boss Jörg Dittrich. He wants to convince the federal government of economic reform in other ways.
At the end, Jörg Dittrich would like to have a single sentence: “Politicians have not yet said: We understand.” What he means by this is: understood where the fears and needs of the craft businesses lie.
Dittrich is President of the Central Association of German Crafts (ZDH). Since January 2023, the master roofer from Dresden has represented over a million companies with around 5.7 million employees. During this time, Germany’s economy did not grow, but rather shrank slightly.
Departure signal wanted
The economy is “facing major structural challenges,” and frustration and uncertainty are growing – that’s what Dittrich and other association heads just wrote in a letter to the Federal Chancellor. A “strong signal of optimism” and “long-term, reliable, business-friendly framework conditions” are needed.
The economic data from the ZDH read better than those from other economic sectors. There is talk of an “overall stable business environment” at the end of 2023. Total sales in the craft sector rose – also due to inflation – by 9.3 percent to 735 billion euros over the entire year.
“The mood is still worse than the real situation,” said Dittrich at a meeting in mid-February. But the craft is on the way to a point where the mood and situation are becoming more similar. Dittrich’s biggest problem child is housing construction. It’s in danger of coming to a standstill. “At the moment, hardly anything new is being started.”
A few days after the conversation, the ZDH published new figures. Almost half of the companies expect a decline in sales in the first quarter of 2024. Only seven percent are currently expecting an increase. The backlog of orders that many companies had has long since been reduced.
From Federal Government disappointed
Dittrich identified a variety of reasons for this. “When it comes to taxes, duties and bureaucracy, the burdens on companies are difficult and sometimes almost impossible to bear,” he says. What particularly alarms him is that every second company is deferring investments. This is also due to a lack of “planning security and reliability of political decisions”.
So Germany is no longer competitive. Not only Dittrich sees it this way, but also Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner. Therefore, for Dittrich Tax cuts for companies, interest support in construction and at least the test suspension of individual regulations, proof requirements and requirements are necessary. What the traffic light coalition has launched instead is not enough.
The Growth Opportunities Act? Dittrich says he doesn’t yet have the feeling that the law can bring about the urgently needed trend reversal, “if it ever sees the light of day at all.”
The power plant strategy that the federal government wants to decide on by summer? The economy needs “competitive energy prices with a reliable and base-load energy supply.” But it is still not clear whether the strategy works and whether it can be financed. “That unsettles and frustrates people,” said Dittrich.
The bureaucracy relief law, the draft of which was presented by the responsible Justice Minister Marco Buschmann? No actual relief. “In any case, this law does not live up to its name,” says Dittrich. “And with that trust was lost again.”
Craftsmen are pushing for protest
This mood drives quite a few craftsmen onto the streets. Farmers are taking part in the protests in many places. Last weekend, farmers and craftsmen temporarily blocked border traffic to Poland in Frankfurt (Oder).
In Munich at the end of January, around ten thousand people demonstrated against the traffic light government’s policies, including many craftsmen. The motto back then: “Medium-sized businesses stand up”. In Flensburg, craftsmen organized a protest convoy with 450 vehicles.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, craftsmen have also organized protests against Russia sanctions and energy policy. Several thousand people took part in such demonstrations in Dessau and Dresden.
However, the focus of political debates is on farmers. And when the German Farmers’ Association and the Federal Association of Road Haulage Logistics and Disposal (BGL) moved to the Brandenburg Gate in mid-January, the ZDH was missing.
The association’s own members urge Jörg Dittrich to do this almost every day. “We have never received so many requests to organize such demonstrations as an association,” says Dittrich. Instead, he keeps the lid on. “In my understanding, economic policy should not be made on the street,” said Dittrich.
Differentiation from attempts at appropriation
Instead, in January, the association asked its members to stop work for a symbolic ten minutes. The five ZDH core demands such as “reduce the burden of taxes and duties” were included as bullet points on a postcard.
Dittrich seeks dialogue with politicians without threatening people. His association also opposes “extremism – no matter what direction,” he says. Debates about topics such as “remigration” would already make Germany less attractive as a country of immigration.
Craftsmen sometimes also took part in demonstrations with right-wing extremists. The AfD is courting the profession. With its federal spokesman Tino Chrupalla, a master painter from Görlitz, it presents itself as a “party of German crafts”.
Habeck wants Reducing bureaucracy check
The “Future Crafts” congress opens at the Munich Trade Fair on Wednesday of this week. Dittrich sits on a podium with Robert Habeck and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder.
He has just presented Habeck with around 40 suggestions “for unraveling the jungle of paragraphs”. The list has been kept by the craft association for four years. It’s about digital allergen information instead of notebooks on the bakery counter, exceptions to packaging requirements, and the abolition of semi-annual driver’s license checks in companies.
On stage, Dittrich repeats the sentence from the interview: “We have the great expectation that politicians will say: We understand.” Habeck answers: Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the traffic light government has primarily had to worry about changing the energy supply. But why shouldn’t what “worked twice and three times as fast” also apply in other areas, asks Habeck.
Germany must move from a “system of absolute legal certainty” to a “system of willingness to take responsibility”. Habeck promises to hold a one-day meeting of all relevant ministries to examine the ZDH’s proposals.
Jörg Dittrich continues on Friday. Then he meets the heads of BDI, BDA and DIHK for a “top-level discussion of the German economy”. The guest of the confidential group: Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz.