Berlin According to one study, companies in Germany are more tightly regulated than in other industrialized countries. Of the 21 countries surveyed, Germany slipped from 14th in 2020 to 19th this year. This is the result of a study conducted by the Mannheim research institute ZEW on behalf of the Foundation for Family Businesses, published in Munich on Wednesday.

“In some sectors, such as the construction of liquefied gas infrastructure, we observe a surprising speed-up in approval procedures during the energy crisis,” said ZEW author Friedrich Heinemann. “But it is still a big exception. We should use this crisis to fundamentally revamp and speed up our administrative processes related to the approval of corporate investments.

According to the ranking, companies are the least regulated in the USA, followed by Canada, Ireland, Japan and Great Britain. Only Spain and the Czech Republic fare worse than Germany.