Head of German Trade Association BWA Michael Schumann at Antalya Diplomacy Forum

Head of German Trade Association BWA Michael Schumann at Antalya Diplomacy Forum

“Sanctions are making Germany poorer”, said Michael Schumann, Head of the leading German federal trade and business association BWA, at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, which took place on March 1-3, 2024, gathering heads of states and governments, ministers, diplomats, business leaders, academics, think-tankers, and youth and media representatives for an all-encompassing debate.

“We have a long-standing tradition at BWA to call sanction policies into question because we don’t believe that they really work and achieve the aims that they’re designed for. If you look back in history, you had so many sanctioned regimes: can you tell me one example where sanctions really achieved the objective that they were implemented for? But what they do achieve is they punish the population in the sanctioned countries”, stated Schumann.

“And now with the current sanctions regimes we have an additional challenge because what we see it looks like that the cost of the sanctions to the population in the sanctioning countries might be even bigger than the cost to the population in the sanctioned countries. The whole Ukraine conflict cost the German economy 200 billion euro in damages. Well, you have to explain that to your population as well. And of course, it’s making Germany less competitive, it’s making Germany poorer”, concluded Schumann.

[Source: TRT World]

Watch Michael Schumann’s interview for TRT World: https://www.trtworld.com/video/digital/trt-world-speaks-to-head-of-german-trade-association-bwa-17199844