Gerber Group Warns of Rising Costs and a Blocked Single Market
Riegel/Brussles, 12 February 2026 – European competitiveness has reached a critical juncture. What was long considered an abstract risk has become a tangible reality for companies across all Member States – particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is the warning issued by the Gerber Group.
Europe’s core competitiveness problem is not insufficient protection
A recent analysis conducted by the company reaches a clear conclusion: Europe’s core competitiveness problem is not insufficient protection, but the opposite – rising costs, expanding bureaucracy, and an increasingly dysfunctional Single Market. Non-tariff barriers, regulatory fragmentation, and administrative requirements now function effectively as internal tariffs ranging from 65 to 100 percent.
Protective instruments such as tariffs increase costs
“The European Single Market is stagnating while prices and production costs continue to rise. Protective instruments such as tariffs, quotas, or origin requirements increase the cost of European value creation instead of safeguarding it,” said Thorsten Gerber, CEO of Gerber Group. According to the company, these additional costs are passed on almost entirely to European businesses and consumers.
SMEs are disproportionately affected. Unlike large corporations, they are unable to absorb rising costs or relocate production internationally. Moreover, policy measures are typically assessed in isolation, while in practice their cumulative effect creates structural cost pressures and planning uncertainty.
Industrial policy concepts based on protectionism or additional trade barriers, the company argues, exacerbate existing imbalances within the European Union. In a union composed of highly diverse economies, such approaches increase the overall cost of the Single Market.
Gerber Group has therefore addressed clear expectations to the European Council:
- No new trade barriers without an integrated overall impact assessment
- Removal of protection measures that exclusively benefit large industries
- Priority for eliminating internal market barriers
- Mandatory SME impact checks for new and planned initiatives
- Measurable reduction of bureaucracy as a competitiveness objective
- Trade policy as a complement to, not a substitute for, a functioning Single Market
“Protectionism does not reduce costs. A functioning Single Market does,” Gerber stated.
Revitalising the Single Market, delivering tangible relief for Europe’s entrepreneurial Mittelstand, and freeing the internal market from structural barriers are, according to Gerber Group, the central economic policy tasks of our time.
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