ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the position adopted by Belgian entrepreneurs vis-à-vis some issues, with which they were confronted as a result of the German occupation. It attempts to establish the extent to which the political nature of the regime had an impact on the entrepreneurs' decision-making process. The Belgian economic elite was driven by economic considerations, which were synthesized in Galopin's concept of 'preservation of the economic structure'. This concept offers an explanation for the stance by the Belgian business community on two levels. A more decisive counterargument can be found in the way in which entrepreneurs and employers' organizations dealt with the restructuring of the labour relations by the Germans, which put the employers into a favourable position of power in relation to the workers' movement. The Nazi model was not adopted; instead, they returned to proposals which had been launched or tested in embryonic form in the 1930s, but which at the time had proved politically impossible.
