German commerce union protests freeze European credit for Lidl company group expansion to Romania

German commerce union ver.di has intervened with the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), putting into question a planned credit for the multinational Schwarz Group. This German holding structure owns the notoriously anti-union hard discounter Lidl, as well as the discount hypermarket chain Kaufland. They had sought financing support for a planned Kaufland expansion in Romania.

In a letter to the EBRD, ver.di brought forward serious complaints about Kaufland's employer behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe. The union demanded that the financing institution introduce clearer criteria for granting credits, including a full respect for the labour and social standards established by the International Labour Organisation. The EBRD has been established to support the transition and economic reconstruction process of the new market economies, that emerged in the region after the political changes in the early 1990's.

The executive director of the EBRD has confirmed to ver.di that also the appropriate unions will have a part in monitoring these criteria. - Altogether, we see positive signals, says Ulrich Dalibor, head of ver.di's retail sector and vice president of UNI-Europa Commerce.

The ver.di action - 'No more public money for lawbreakers' - was undertaken in cooperation with Romanian and British commerce unions. The EBRD headquarters are in London, the United Kingdom.