BERLIN — Zalando, Europe’s biggest fashion e-tailer, canceled next season’s Bread & Butter because the fairgrounds of Tempelhof Airport will probably open for refugees soon.
Bread & Butter, the denim and streetwear trade show, filed for insolvency last December, and was subsequently acquired by Zalando. The new owner planned the first edition of a business-to-consumer platform for January 2016 at the fair’s home base of Tempelhof Airport, but canceled today due to the Berlin Senate’s plan to possibly opening the grounds for refugees.
As Europe faces the largest migrant stream since the aftermath of the Second World War, Germany expects to accept up to 800,000 asylum seekers in 2015, the largest amount among the European countries and a number corresponding to almost one percent of the total population.
Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel suspended the Dublin Regulation for Syrian refugees, a controversial rule that requires migrants to seek asylum in the EU member state they have first entered. As a result, Syrian migrants from Eastern European countries are arriving in Germany by the thousands daily.
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The German capital is currently coping with the majority of incoming refugees, and constantly expanding emergency shelters, Tempelhof Airport probably being one them.
Zalando welcomed the Senate’s decision: “Given the background, we are of course touched by the current worsening of the refugee situation in Europe, which is strongly affecting Berlin as well. In the light of the latest happenings, we hence decided to give our contribution and get involved by changing the concept of the upcoming Bread & Butter event in January, and turning it into a benefit event,” a Zalando spokesman said.