At a business day organized by the foreign trade association BGA, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck commented on current bureaucratic procedures regarding the supply chain law and the deforestation directive. Above all, he advocated reducing any bureaucratic hurdles. According to Welt, companies should be trusted to take more personal responsibility again, says Habeck. “No company wants child or slave labor in its products,” it continues, adding that the excessive bureaucracy is putting the competitiveness of the German economy under pressure. “We have dug ourselves into a world where, in the end, the accuracy of the reporting obligations determines how competitive a company is.” The approach of the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act is correct, but “with good intentions we took a completely wrong turn.” Instead of implementing individual improvements, the approach is to “start the chainsaw and bolt the whole thing away.”
The Federal Minister of Economics then received criticism, not least from within his own ranks of Alliance 90/The Greens. “At this point, the Minister of Economic Affairs represents neither the position of Alliance 90/The Greens nor that of the Green Group in the European Parliament,” said Green politician Anna Cavazzini, chairwoman of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee in the EU Parliament, to the news medium Der Spiegel. Now, “bolting away these rules with a chainsaw does not correspond to our understanding of politics.”
