Frankfurt/Brussels, 25 February 2025 – Commenting on the European Commission's plans to simplify the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the EU Taxonomy in an omnibus regulation, VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann says:
 

• “The proposed omnibus package with measures to simplify three particularly burdensome sets of regulations must send a clear signal to industry: the EU is serious about reducing red tape! A weak compromise that ultimately fails to bring about any concrete improvements in the day-to-day running of companies would severely undermine the confidence of small and medium-sized industrial enterprises.”

• "The EU must immediately postpone the application of the Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) by at least two years. Furthermore, the reporting threshold must be increased to 1,000 employees and €450 million in revenue.”

• “After that, the content of the regulations must be comprehensively revised. This includes reducing the number of data points, simplifying requirements and limiting the trickle-down effect in the supply chain. Only in this way companies can pursue their sustainability goals in a focused manner without being overwhelmed by bureaucratic processes.”

VDMA represents 3600 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 910 billion euros. Around 80 percent of the machinery sold in the EU comes from a manufacturing plant in the domestic market.