As a business representative of the Kleve district, Andreas Pellens was invited to the CDU/CSU summit in Berlin at the end of January. The CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag wanted to discuss current economic challenges and gather opinions and ideas on necessary political changes from entrepreneurs themselves. Stephan Rouenhoff, Member of the Bundestag for the district of Kleve, invited four entrepreneurs from various sectors of the economy to the summit. Among them was Andreas Pellens.

“It was a very interesting event and a very good exchange,” Andreas Pellens sums up. Due to a lack of time during the two-hour discussion round, not all of the entrepreneurs who had signed up to speak were able to do so. Many participants would have liked more time and tighter time management from some of the speakers. “Nevertheless, many aspects were mentioned that are currently on the minds of us company owners,” said Andreas Pellens. Stephan Rouenhoff had also invited his own guests to an internal round table after the official event, in which further aspects were discussed and topics explored in greater depth.

In addition to the burdensome bureaucracy, the topics addressed included in particular the lack of employees and the wage gap to the Citizen’s Income. Several speakers at the event explained that many people now apparently lack the incentive to go to work, as there is only a little more money left over after tax in the lower wage groups than when receiving citizen’s income. Several entrepreneurs shared concrete experiences with corresponding statements from (former) employees. One solution proposed by the panel was tax relief for the lower wage groups. “I personally found it also very interesting to see how similar not only the problems of the entrepreneurs were, but also the ideas for possible solutions,” explained Andreas Pellens. Now, of course, the participants hope that the criticism has been heard and that the parliamentary group can develop and introduce ways to remedy the situation.