Frankfurt, 11 February 2026 – On the occasion of the Informal EU leaders' retreat on competitiveness, VDMA President Bertram Kawlath says:
• ‘The heads of state and government are meeting at a crucial moment to set Europe's course towards growth and competitiveness. The corrections made so far have been correct, but they are far from sufficient to address the geopolitical realities.’
• ‘Under no circumstances should this moment be used merely to engage in discussions about ‘local content’ that distract from the real problem: Europe is no longer competitive in many areas. Excessive and difficult-to-implement regulation, a weakening internal market and a lack of technological leadership – these shortcomings must be addressed.’
• ‘The initial successes in the areas of trade and bureaucracy reduction must not be jeopardised by new initiatives with new rules. Local content regulations are not a general panacea and will have severe side effects. Their implementation threatens to create new bureaucratic hurdles. In addition, global supply chains are coming under further pressure.’
• ‘The competitiveness of industry cannot be strengthened by introducing rigid European value-added quotas. Potential obligations to source from Europe must not contravene WTO rules and the trade agreements that have just been concluded.’
• ‘Buy European is only justified where the EU's security interests are at risk and if there is no other way to prevent dependence on strategically relevant technologies and critical raw materials.’
VDMA President Bertram Kawlath
The VDMA represents 3,500 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies. The industry stands for innovation, export orientation and small and medium-sized enterprises. The companies employ a total of around 3 million people in the EU-27, more than 1.2 million of them in Germany alone. This makes mechanical and plant engineering the largest employer among the capital goods industries, both in the EU-27 and in Germany. It accounts for an estimated turnover of around 870 billion euros in the European Union. Around 80 per cent of the machinery sold in the EU comes from a manufacturing facility in the internal market