Klaus-Peter Willsch, who is a member of the German parliament and sits on the board of go4copy.net, sits beside German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Achim Carius, manager of Motio, stands behind. Carius lobbied some politicians at Merkel's "summer festival" meeting on issues of importance to reprographics.
Leaders of the German reprographics association Motio met with several members of the German parliament at the "summer festival" for German economic leaders in Berlin last week to discuss the minimum wage, copyright laws, and other issues.
Motio manager Achim Carius lobbied on six issues of importance to reprographics firms:
1) The minimum wage laws that burden the industry
2) Insolvency laws that affect how bankrupt firms get debt relief repeatedly
3) An extension of copyright levies that will harm repro firms
4) Excessive bureaucracy that hinders small and medium-size businesses
5) Estate taxes that burden successors of family businesses
6) Fears that "eGovernment" will significantly reduce the amount of paper reproduction
"Such lobbying is important, and often has a positive impact on the printing business," Carius says.