Anca Vlad, at the EFB Summit: Family businesses are affected by the massive wave of EU regulations

Romanian family businesses were represented at the 2022 European Family Businesses Summit, a large-scale event, organized in Berlin, between June 13-14, 2022, by the Family Business Network Romania Association. Anca Vlad, vice-president of Family Business Network Romania and a member of the European Family Businesses Board, president of Fildas-Catena, was the speaker at the event which brought together leading personalities from the world of European business and politics. Mr. Christian Lindner, the German Minister of Finance attended the event.

Shareholders of important companies from all over Europe were present at the Summit: Germany, France, Poland, Finland, Portugal, Spain.

The following persons represented the Family Business Network Romania: Anca and Alexandru Vlad, Rodica Bontas, Adrian Bodea, Răzvan Neamţu, Lavinia Constantinescu, Sandra Felicia and Matei Şerban Grădinariu.

Anca Vlad spoke about the need of rethinking the restrictive measures imposed by the European Union, with great care, to avoid affecting their businesses with disproportionate fines.

“Undeniably, family businesses play a significant role in the EU economy. A report issued by the European Commission reveal that family businesses stand for more than 60% of all companies in Europe. However, it appears that the reports have not noticed the impact of the massive wave of regulations on family businesses. Over the past decade, the number of regulations that could trigger massive fines in the event of breach has grown significantly. In addition to the standard issues that need to be dealt with (e.g. tax compliance, which itself gets more and more complex every year), other areas continue to grow in terms of complexity and the level of applicable fines, in many cases disproportionate to the relevance of the actual infringements.

All these laws, regulations, guidelines, amounting to thousands of pages in total, translate into a multitude of internal procedures and regulations, and endless documentation that should be read by entrepreneurs! This creates growing bureaucratic requirements within what should be agile, entrepreneurial companies, thus limiting their ability to materialize the characteristics that are the very distinctive advantage of family businesses. Our companies are the first ones interested to operate in a legal and well-regulated environment. For these companies to thrive, the laws and regulations should consider the proportionality of the compliance burden imposed to the resources that need to be allocated and the meaning of these rules to entrepreneurs”, said Anca Vlad.

Ursula von der Leyen: “You are the best of our European market economy”

“Family businesses are the backbone of our European economy. Family businesses never cease innovating. They do not focus on the next shareholder meeting. They value sustainable development and investments that will benefit future generations. In short: you embody the best of our European market economy”, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a video message.

“Inflation, high energy prices, supply chains disrupted by the pandemic, increased costs of introducing green and digital transformation – these are challenges for both companies and EU countries. Overcoming these issues requires competitive companies, financial stability, and an effective EU”, said Udo J. Vetter, president of European Family Business.

Family Business Network Romania members are: Adrem Invest, Agricin, Amset Prodexim, Arena City Center, Autonom, Bog’art, Cristim, Dinamic 92 Distribution, DMF Poliplast, Electra, Eximtur, FAN Curier, Fildas Trading, Flame Data Technologies, Global Vision, Imob, Integrata Pascani, Ivatherm, M&M Product, Novaintermed, Piata de Gros Abundia, Sandra Trading, Secom Healthcare, Secpral Pro Instalatii, Skela Industries, Tecnostar Consulting, Temad Co, Tester Grup, Transavia.

Source: Kanal D