The eBay delegation presents German Minister of Economics Brigitte Zypries with eBay’s VAT petition.

Last week four German eBay sellers visited Berlin to meet with German legislators. Sellers Andrea Gönner (eBay Store: Garnwelt), Christian Schläfer (eBay Store: FanSport24), Andreas Müller (eBay Store: Deltatecc) and Christoph Burmester (eBay Store: Avides) were on hand to discuss a wide variety of subjects important to all eBay Germany sellers, including Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) empowerment, Value Added Tax (VAT), platform bans and the abuse of so-called cease-and-desist letters. Overall, the legislators were quite interested in hearing from the sellers and several follow-up meetings have already been planned.

The event started with a breakfast reception for new members of the German Bundestag. Head of eBay Germany Eben Sermon served as the keynote speaker and provided a great overview of eBay’s business in Germany.

While in Berlin the group also took the opportunity to present our recent VAT Petition to German Minster of Economics Brigitte Zypries and State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Michael Meister. With more than 20,000 signatures from German residents (and over 100,000 total EU resident signatures) the petition was an excellent discussion starter on the importance of sound VAT policy that protects and supports SMEs in Germany and across Europe.

The eBay Government Relations team would like to thank Andrea, Christian, Andreas and Christoph for taking time away from their businesses to meet with legislators on behalf of all eBay sellers in Germany.