Frankfurt, 23 June 2026 – Commenting on the vote in the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) on the proposed amendments to the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann says:

• “Securing the supply of critical raw materials is one of the key industrial policy challenges facing Europe. The European Commission’s ‘RESourceEU package’ places greater emphasis on raw materials security and is therefore an important step towards strengthening European resilience.”

• “However, we view with great concern the amendments to the CRMA currently being discussed in the European Parliament. Mandatory risk assessments for companies are set to be extended. This would create a significant additional administrative burden without improving the actual availability of critical raw materials.”

• “Equally alarming are the proposals to empower the European Commission to impose specific measures on companies to diversify their supply chains. Decisions regarding procurement, supplier structure and risk management lie at the heart of corporate responsibility. State intervention in these business decisions would weaken the competitiveness of European companies and hamper investment.”

• “Securing a supply of raw materials is a challenge that neither companies nor governments can tackle alone. Close cooperation between the political and business sectors is essential in order to tap into new sources of supply and facilitate investment in processing and recycling. Additional red tape hinders these efforts.”

• “The proposed amendments to the CRMA could be just the beginning: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already announced further measures to diversify critical supply chains. There is a risk of further detailed requirements, reporting obligations and interference in companies’ procurement decisions. This would place a further strain on the competitiveness of European companies.”

The VDMA represents 3500 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies. The industry stands for innovation, export orientation and SMEs. The companies employ 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. In the European Union, it represents a turnover volume of an estimated 900 billion euros. Around 80 percent of the machinery sold in the EU comes from a manufacturing plant in the domestic market.