Et was a big sentence that Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) said in the Bundestag last week: “SMEs will be protected.” Thousands of companies that receive less attention than listed corporations, but which have nevertheless created millions of jobs in their niches and make up Germany as a business location.
Normally, medium-sized companies are not in the first row when it comes to help, such as rescue packages or programs to reduce energy costs. But nothing is normal right now.
Progroup AG from Landau in Rhineland-Palatinate is a typical medium-sized company, one of the largest manufacturers of corrugated board and corrugated base paper in Europe. At production sites in six European countries, Progroup recently achieved sales of almost 900 million euros, and the trend is rising. The energy crisis is hitting the entire paper and packaging industry hard, says Maximilian Heindl, the founder’s son and deputy chairman of the board.
