FOCUS Online : Mr Schierholz, you live in Rome. How you feel in your everyday life, the consequences of the struggle of the Italian authorities against the Coronavirus?

Fabrizio Schierholz : is Completely closed enormous: A majority of the shops, the city is empty of people and the volume of traffic is very low. Most of the people stay at home.

FOCUS Online In Germany have caused a so-called hamster buyers attention. How does that work in Italy Are closed, the shops, or you can go into the supermarket and buy what you need?

Schierholz : These events has given here, so that people have purchased huge quantities of preserved food, hygiene products or toilet paper. But it is within limits. Supermarkets are allowed to enter in small groups of five or a maximum of six people at a time. What it lacks currently and that's a shame – are respiratory masks and disinfectants for the hands. The Person

Fabrizio Bianchi Schierholz works as a lawyer in Milan and Rome. The commercial and labour law expert at the same time, head of the permanent representation of the Federal Association of SME sector (BVMW) in Italy. Previously schierholz was a member of the city Council of Milan. He was also for the public pension insurance Ipsema in Rome, as well as the consulting firm Ecovis active.

FOCUS Online you Can order from home Goods, for example via an online shop? Or have offered the post and delivery services set up your service, may not, perhaps, ring the bell on you?

Schierholz : everything is supplied, but the question is: for How long? The media reported of spontaneous strikes in the factories of the North. The workers there are scared and want to stay at home. The cure it is similar.

"All employees wear masks,"

FOCUS Online : you will Meet your colleagues and business partners at the moment, personally?

Schierholz : We are working, as long as it is possible for us, in our office as usual. Of course, there are no personal Meetings or contacts with our clients or external people. All employees wear masks.

FOCUS Online : do you Think that the measures adopted by the Italian government, go too far, or done, in your view, maybe even too little?

Schierholz : It is, as often in life, an ethical question: is one human life more or the money? The Coronavirus-the experience in China has taught us that only drastic measures and isolation can stop the Virus. And that is exactly what the government is trying in Italy to enforce. I think you are also with a certain wisdom, because of the drastic decrees and orders that are applied at the Moment, would probably have been made a week ago by the people not accepted. Reuters/Andrew Medichini/AP/dpa A priest after a Church service of a visitor in Rome in Free the confession

of Course, you must mittspielen the population. It may not show up the feeling, you hold the people against their will "caught" or depriving them of their freedoms. A feeling should arise, this could end in a Disaster.

FOCUS Online What to say to the people around you?

Schierholz : The people made the Situation and disciplined on. To me the question of whether the exception provisions will increase in their intensity still busy but. So, I'm afraid, for example, that in future, a General house arrest will be issued. The uncertainty about how long this situation is going to last, and until when will the people endure the condition, that's what Worries me. Reuters/Claudio Furlan/LaPresse, via ZUMA Press/dpa customers in a supermarket in Milan

FOCUS Online : they are representatives and contact persons of the German "Mittelstand" companies in Italy and currently have to do probably too much. What are the questions you need to clarify? Of what are the problems that companies and entrepreneurs tell you?

Schierholz : As I listen to all kinds, both as the head of the BVMW, as well as in our law firm. So, for example, clients, the deal in Germany, employees have, and have nothing to do at the Moment, a lot of to. The question is whether you could send in a forced vacation, or whether and how to receive from government the special grants. Company from Germany ask us, if there is the opportunity to terminate contracts due to force majeure.

FOCUS Online : What answers made you say that?

Schierholz : Since there is no standard answer, because it always depends on the content and the type of contract. The termination can only be applied in certain cases, as "extrema ratio". More often it happens, however, that contracts will be paused, and the terms re-negotiated. An example: You can pause under certain circumstances, the lease of an office, the rent so temporarily do not pay, if you can't use the facilities due to the new restrictions. As a General rule: There must be a concrete objective reason.

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FOCUS Online : you Can estimate, what would be the consequences of the epidemic for the Italian economy? The counter-measures and financial assistance available are sufficient, as decided by the Italian government so far?

Schierholz : There have now been decided, further important financial support, but all this is only a drop on the hot stone, if to come to a "Lock-down" of Italy should, so a blocking of the entire country. This must not happen, in my opinion, because the Virus is deadly, poverty but also. To lose good positions on the markets, may be for Italy is very risky. Therefore, the government has – I mean closed, right – up until now, the factories, even though they are potential breeding sites of the Virus.

FOCUS Online : How small and medium-sized enterprises in Italy of the measures affected?

Schierholz : dropped Very hard: Due to the measures already described, the domestic demand is immense. The Export for the economy of Italy as well as in Germany, of enormous importance, is also affected. Italian products are considered to be due to the fear of infection abroad with scepticism. Reuters/Andrew Medichini/AP/dpa, Only a few people walking on the Piazza del Popolo in Rome.

FOCUS Online What should do the German government to the population, but also the business appropriate to a possible increased spread of the Virus in this country prepare?

Schierholz : The German government should start immediately a campaign to raise awareness of the population: you need to explain what is happening and how to stop the spread of the Virus, and that this exception is a situation to be the more completed faster, the faster you isolated the Virus. Second, you should harm the contacts between people, temporarily, so far as possible, say, even if it is the economy.

however, I am firmly convinced that our country, my father country, Germany and my native country, Italy, are now suffering, that our old culture will give us but the wisdom, with this crisis situation, reasonably, rationally, and without panic to deal, and that we will get up again soon, stronger and wiser than before, as it always happened in our history.

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