Germany\u2019s drive to compete with Chinese imports is colliding with its long-standing tradition of Sunday rest, with policymakers and retailers now asking whether a century-old consensus still fits an economy struggling to regain its competitiveness.<\/p>\n
However, retail and business associations argue that the changes do not go far enough. The reform only touches federal working-time rules, leaving shop opening hours \u2013 regulated by Germany\u2019s 16 states \u2013 untouched.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shop closing law is, in my view, a relic of the past,\u201d Peter Adrian, president of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in mid-July. \u201cRetailers should be left to decide whether they want to open their stores on Sundays or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many newcomers to Germany, the Sunday shutdown can be a culture shock.<\/p>\n
After six days of almost unrestricted shopping, supermarket doors suddenly stay shut, leaving only narrow exceptions such as petrol stations, pharmacies on emergency duty, bakeries for limited hours, and shops at railway stations, airports and in designated tourist areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s drive to compete with Chinese imports is colliding with its long-standing tradition of Sunday rest, with policymakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[174],"tags":[256521,256516,25123,79,381,39919,256520,179,18,256519,256523,256515,256524,6621,256518,19,17,256522,256517,7770,6464,5660],"class_list":["post-607413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alexander-von-preen","tag-basic-law","tag-berlin","tag-business","tag-china","tag-christian","tag-deutsche-presse-agentur","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-federal-constitutional-court","tag-german-chamber-of-commerce-and-industry","tag-german-economic-institute","tag-german-retail-federation","tag-germany","tag-hde","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-peter-adrian","tag-schleswig-holstein","tag-shein","tag-sunday","tag-work-life-balance"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116995043279243307","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}