Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - The Baden-Württemberg Crafts Day sounds the alarm because of the skyrocketing energy prices. In an open letter to Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir (Greens), which is available to the German Press Agency, the head of the association, Rainer Reichhold, warns that many bakers in the country would face the end if there were no state aid for them. "Many bakeries are despairing because of the energy cost crisis," writes the craft president. Economic operation is hardly possible for many. About 70 percent of the companies baked with gas. Nevertheless, the bakers, like almost all other craft businesses, are “actually excluded” from federal aid. Reichhold called on Özdemir to work to ensure that the trades are taken into account in the federal government's third relief package.
Reichhold praised Özdemir for supporting the initiative of the Württemberg bakers' guild to put the craft of pretzel baking on the national list of candidates for intangible cultural heritage. But it is even more important to secure the existence of the bakeries, which are in tough competition with the international retail chains. "We urgently need support," wrote the head of the association to the minister, who comes from Bad Urach (Reutlingen district) and represents Stuttgart in the Bundestag.
