“Federal Gouvernment Must Protect Supply Chains as Packaging is Systemically Relevant”
Packaging is an integral part of the population's security of supply and should therefore be recognised as systemically relevant and placed under appropriate protection. The associations of the paper and plastics processing industry, which are members of the Hauptverband Papier- und Kunststoffverarbeitung (HPV), have addressed this demand to the Federal Government.
The associations see dangers for the supply chain of packaging for food and pharmaceutical products as a result of the measures imposed in the fight against the spread of the Corona virus. The maintenance of the supply chains is essential for coping with the current Corona crisis and thus systemically relevant, they said, and should not be jeopardized by other measures to contain the Corona pandemic.
In order to maintain the supply to the population, transport and sales packaging (made of paper/cardboard and plastic) and its raw materials and intermediate products for food and pharmaceutical products should be classified as “integral components and systemically relevant products in the context of measures to contain the corona pandemic.”
In particular, the national border controls in the Schengen area have hindered the effective delivery of raw materials and pre-products for the production of transport and sales packaging, and have sometimes even prevented it. For fear of being put under precautionary quarantine, employees of logistics companies had already refused to travel to areas with high restrictions. The HPV therefore appeals to companies in the transport and logistics sector to give assurances that drivers will be allowed to return to their starting point under all circumstances.
Supply chains should be protected and exempted from the restrictions in connection with measures for cross-border goods traffic, says the HPV statement.
According to the HPV, the expectations of the associations are in line with the analogous demand by the Employers’ Association for Food and Pleasure (ANG), the Federal Association of the German Food Industry (BVE) and the German Food Association “Coronavirus outbreak – Effects on the German Food Industry and Demands for Maintaining Production” addressed to the Federal Government.
