Brussels, March 19, 2025 - VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann on the EU Commission's White Paper on the future of European defence:

•    "The White Paper on European Defence sends an important signal for a strong Europe: Europe's security cannot be guaranteed by national efforts alone."

•    "It is also right to focus on the industrial dimension, because without a common industrial base, additional spending on defence will remain inefficient. It is crucial that in the EU production increase in volume and costs decrease. To achieve this, the scaling potential of the internal market must be leveraged."

•    "At the same time, Europe's defence industry needs efficient value chains for components and production technologies. European mechanical and plant engineering will play a key role here when it comes to quickly building up new capacities, producing efficiently and developing new solutions."

•    "It is also important that the EU White Paper aims at cutting red tape and proposes an "omnibus for defense". However, defence equipment also needs competitive supply chains. The simplification of regulation in the defence sector should be a model for fundamentally improving Europe as a business location for all companies.

The VDMA represents 3600 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies. The industry stands for innovation, export orientation and medium-sized businesses. 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 910 billion euros in the European Union. Around 80 percent of the machines sold in the EU come from a production facility in the internal market.