DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER
Der Verband und seine Mitglieder bekennen sich zur sozialen Marktwirtschaft, zu einem freiheitlichen und fairen Wettbewerb, zur privaten Eigentumsordnung und zu der daraus erwachsenden sozialen Verpflichtung und Verantwortung.
ID: 086648916736-69
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Manfred Weber (Member of the European Parliament)
20 May 2025 · Politischer Austausch
Response to Single Market Strategy 2025
31 Jan 2025
German Family businesses welcome the fact that the EU Commission wants to advance the completion of the single market and its adaptation to current and future challenges with a horizontal strategy. With this approach, it is essential that the many effects of planned single market regulation on a complex networked European economy are analysed and scrutinised before a draft regulation is fed into the political process. One of the main reasons for the bureaucratic overregulation of European companies is that the spillover effects of single market regulation beyond the actual scope are not taken into account or are taken into account far too little. In particular, the regulatory design of the Green Deal has been conceived and implemented in a far too fragmented manner by the Commission, Parliament and Council. This can be observed in the case of negative spillover effects in relation to sectors and company sizes which, according to the polluter pays principle, have nothing to do with the facts to be regulated and yet are fully covered by the regulation. As a result, German and European family businesses are now confronted with a flood of overlapping requirements. The regulations, which were often initiated with third countries in mind, have driven the fragmentation of the single market due to their excessive complexity. From the perspective of both an internationally operating company and an investor, this is one of the serious locational disadvantages that Europe currently has. The excessive and impractical design of the CSRD and its differing national implementation is a good example of regulation that damages the internal market. For this reason, family entrepreneurs expect the announced simplification, consolidation and fundamental revision of the CSRD, CSDDD and the EU taxonomy as part of the announced omnibus procedure to significantly reduce the burden on European companies. The reduction of bureaucracy by 25 to 35 per cent that has been promised in many cases can only be achieved if there is a drastic reduction in regulation. With the new mandate, the EU Commission has the obligation to review and discuss in particular those regulations that Europe has agreed on in the last four years. Constructive proposals that the German family businesses have made in many areas are still relevant: a fundamental reversal in the regulation of supply chains according to the safe harbour principle is still required. This would not release companies from their obligations, but it would release them from liability for the behaviour of third parties, which could threaten their very existence. Much more drastic changes must be made to the completely misconceived CBAM border adjustment mechanism: It should be abolished. The intended improvement in the position of European companies that demonstrably produce ecologically should be achieved unbureaucratically through the allocation of free certificates. These are just two examples that make it clear that a horizontal improvement to the benefit of the internal market is possible and that proposals from affected participants from industry should be considered at an early stage. The single market has become both more complex and more attractive due to the increased number of member states. An uncomplicated and functioning internal market offers huge growth opportunities, especially for innovative SMEs. The attractiveness of the market with 450 million consumers to trading partners is also significantly increased by the fact that a consistent and low-bureaucracy set of rules is applied when entering the market. The German Family businesses support the EU Commission at all times with constructive proposals on the path to such a set of rules as part of its strategy.
Read full responseMeeting with Svenja Hahn (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur for opinion) and American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union and
11 Dec 2024 · Revision of the EUs Foreign Direct Investment Screening mechanism
Meeting with Svenja Hahn (Member of the European Parliament)
24 Sept 2024 · Liberal politics and competitiveness of the European economy
Response to Rationalisation of reporting requirements
30 Nov 2023
Die Familienunternehmer begrüßen den Ansatz der EU Kommission zur Reduktion von Bürokratie im Bereich der Nachweispflichten ausdrücklich. Angesichts der in der laufenden Wahlperiode geschaffenen neuen Pflichten und der bereits ausgelösten und in der Umsetzung befindlichen Berichtspflichten, ist die Festlegung auf eine Reduktion von 25 Prozent zweifelslos zu gering. Auch wenn der Ansatz einer offenen Beteiligtenbefragung sinnvoll ist, ist es die Aufgabe der EU-Kommission, jede einzelne unternehmensrelevante Bestimmung hinsichtlich der damit verbundenen Berichtspflichten zu analysieren und dann in einem aktiven Dialog mit Stakeholdern nach praxisnahen und bürokratiearmen Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten zu suchen. In diesem Sinne betrachten die folgenden Ausführungen nicht nur existierende Bürokratielasten sondern warnen ausdrücklich vor der absehbaren Schaffung neuer Bürokratieerschwernissen im Bereich der Berichtpflichten.
Read full responseMeeting with Daniel Caspary (Member of the European Parliament)
15 Nov 2023 · Austausch
Meeting with Peter Liese (Member of the European Parliament)
15 Nov 2023 · Meinungsaustausch
Meeting with Angelika Niebler (Member of the European Parliament)
15 Nov 2023 · EU bureaucratic burden
Meeting with Norbert Lins (Member of the European Parliament)
15 Nov 2023 · Meinungsaustausch
Response to Net Zero Industry Act
16 Jun 2023
Climate change and the transformation it requires pose major challenges for the European economy. The fact that the EU-Commission is attempting to address these challenges at the European level with the Net Zero Industry Act is right. The EU must act urgently to make Europe more competitive and attractive as a location for investment and innovation in future-oriented technologies. However, in the view of DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER, the approach chosen by the Commission for this is wrong. Despite individual constructive proposals (acceleration of approval and planning procedures for net-zero areas, focus on securing resilient supply chains or advancing FTAs, etc.), the emphasis is clearly on politically prescribed production quotas and subsidies for individual green technologies. DIE FAMILIENUNTERHMER categorically rejects such a planned economy approach. By setting quotas to produce at least 40 percent of zero-emission technologies in the EU's domestic market and specifying market share quotas for individual technologies, the EU is embarking on the wrong path of a global protectionist race. Such indicative targets are politically disconnected from actual market demand and in no way serve the overriding goal of ensuring the competitiveness of European industry in the long term. On the contrary, they create guaranteed producer rents for a few suppliers, while the majority of companies are exposed to distorted competition in favour of particularly subsidized sectors. Already today, the EU-Commission has sufficient possibilities to intensively promote extensive projects with less consideration of EU competition law via the very broad definition of IPCEI . DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER expect the EU-Commission to make greater use of the potential of the market-based instruments already available, instead of constantly introducing new subsidies and rigid production quotas. For example, emissions trading is to be extended to all important sectors in 2027. This would provide Europe with the instrument that would lead to significantly more efficient solutions to current climate and energy policy challenges than would be possible with the planned economy requirements proposed in the NZIA. Contrary to the proclaimed goal of wanting to reduce the burdens of bureaucracy, NZIA contains a very large number of instruments, some of which are very small-scale, which would greatly increase the bureaucratic burden. For example, the EU-Commission proposes to establish a new form of additional evaluation criteria ("resilience criteria") in the public procurement of net zero technologies. Similarly, the approach of the NZIA defining certain strategically important zero-emission technologies now through 2030 should be rejected. This contradicts the principle of technological openness and weakens the innovative power of European industry. From the point of view of DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER, the financing measures of the NZIA already indicated are also not acceptable. In particular, a further debt-financed so-called European Sovereignty Fund, as envisaged by the EU-Commission, must be categorically rejected. The Commission's proposal to draw the 380 billion euros needed to implement the Green Deal industrial plan from already existing spending programs within Next Gen EU such as the Reconstruction and Resilience Facility, RePower-EU or InvestEU reinforces the tendency to plan and spend the same EU budget funds several times for different purposes. In summary the EU Commission is addressing an important goal with the NZIA and at the same time proposing a completely wrong path. It is not the isolation through production quotas, subsidies, levies and regulations, but competitive and market-based measures, driven by openness to technology, free trade, diversification, reduction of bureaucracy, tax cuts and promotion of innovation and investment are the right approaches to strengthening the competitiveness of the European economy.
Read full responseMeeting with Bernd Lange (Member of the European Parliament, Committee chair)
24 Apr 2023 · General exchange of view
Meeting with Axel Voss (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)
7 Feb 2023 · Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence
Response to Debt equity bias reduction allowance (DEBRA)
22 Jul 2022
DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER have for decades advocated an interest adjustment of the profit tax base with an indexed, increasing flat interest rate for the reasons mentioned above.
In this respect, the initiative of the EU Commission presented in 2021 under the title DEBRA met with approval in principle from DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER. However, the exact formulation in the draft directive fails to achieve the set goals of promoting a “robust, efficient and fair tax system” and, with the supplementary proposal to restrict the deduction of borrowed capital, even runs the risk of exacerbating in times of crises. DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER regret that the content of what is actually a good and overdue reform proposal has been modified by the EU Commission in such a way that it can no longer receive the unconditional approval of DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER's membership.
Considerable improvements are necessary in order to achieve the objectives of the Directive and to bring the Directive into a legal form that is practicable for companies.
DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER find it particularly worrying that the EU Commission did not propose any option close to the draft directive now presented in the first consultation phase in 2021. Option 5 (incremental tax allowance of corporate equity with a partial limitation of tax deductibility) listed in the impact assessment report was not part of the consultation as such. In the consultation questionnaire, option 5 was only defined with the word "other".
DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER are convinced that the objectives of the Directive can be achieved by an interest adjustment of the profit tax base with an indexed, increasing flat interest rate, based not only on the increase in equity but on the existing equity.
The approach based on the size of the portfolio and not on growth rates eliminates many design options and thus the anti-abuse-rules envisaged on a large scale in the present draft directive.
The members of DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER are characterised in their actions by intergenerational thinking and the desire not only to hand over a soundly managed company to a respective successor, but also to leave behind a stable economic and thus sustainable environment.
DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER strictly reject the Commission's proposed response to the Commission's concern that measures to reduce the preferential tax treatment of debt versus equity financing could weaken the tax revenue of the nation states. The limiting of the deductibility of debt capital would considerably weaken Europe's attractiveness as an investment location for FDI.
The amount of the possible tax losses depends on various factors, including the possibility of carry forwards or the interest rate and risk premium applied. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the EU Commission has considered these possibilities. Regarding the ATAD Directive, the suspicion arises that the Commission considers the limitation of the deduction of borrowed capital as the appropriate means of choice to ensure the counter-financing of any political expenditure.
DIE FAMILIENUNTERNEHMER call on the Commission to withdraw the present draft, considering the results of the consultation and after exchanges with stakeholders, to draw up a new proposal for a legally secure and more practicable solution without the currently envisaged limitation of the deduction of borrowing costs.
There is also a need to better analyse the interactions between the DEBRA Directive and the global minimum tax, which is yet to be implemented in the EU.
Moreover, this is a far-reaching intervention in the respective national systems of income taxation, which requires extensive justification. The brief justification given so far for this intervention seems insufficient here.
Read full responseMeeting with Jens Gieseke (Member of the European Parliament)
3 May 2022 · Austausch zur Mittelstandspolitik
Meeting with Axel Voss (Member of the European Parliament)
10 Feb 2022 · Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive
Meeting with Günther Oettinger (Commissioner) and Stiftung Familienunternehmen
27 Feb 2018 · European tax policy
Meeting with Kaius Kristian Hedberg (Cabinet of Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska)
3 Jun 2015 · Introductory meeting