Small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) in Germany could lose billions of euros in trade, should Britain be locked out of the single market, the boss of an industry body has said.
Mario Ohoven, the president of the BVMW, which represents approximately 270,000 SMEs in the Eurozone's largest economy, warned a so-called "hard Brexit" would be deeply damaging to both Britain and Germany.
"Germany exported goods worth €89bn to the UK alone in 2015, almost half of it was exported by 150,000 German SMEs," he said.
"In the end, a soft Brexit should be reached. It is important that the UK stays in the single market, or that the UK joins an agreement similar to the the EFTA (European Free Trade Association), similar to Norway or Iceland.
"The worst result would be if the EU and the UK did not reach an agreement in time."
Ovohen also added there were a lot more firms trading indirectly with the UK, while others relied on Britain as far as their research and development strategies were concerned. [...]
"The German Mittelstand does not believe in the world economy as a fixed size cake, in which every country has to fight against the other countries to increase its share," he said.
"A hard Brexit, or an increase in protectionism, will only lead to a decrease of the cake as a whole," he warned. I want to be very clear here - Brexit knows no winners, all sides will lose."
The BVMW chief also stressed SMEs in Germany were heavily reliant on the four freedoms of the EU - free movement of people, goods, capital and services - adding that approximately 6% of the Mittelstand total workforce came from other EU member states.
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