Frankfurt/Brussels, 8 April 2025 – Hartmut Rauen, Deputy Executive Director of the VDMA, comments on the European Commission's planned ‘AI continent action plan’:

• "It is good that the European Commission's action plan now emphasizes the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence. After the risks and regulation were at the center of the last legislature, it is time for a new beginning. AI offers enormous opportunities for European industry, which must now be seized."

• "Above all, the focus on industrial application is important. Here, Europe is still ahead and there is considerable potential, especially in the production technologies offered by the machinery and equipment manufacturing industry. A study by the VDMA shows that generative AI could mean an additional 28 billion euros in profits for the German mechanical engineering sector alone."

• "It is also important to scrutinize and simplify EU digital regulation, such as the AI Act or the Data Act. There are still too many small-scale and sometimes overlapping regulations that unsettle companies and complicate the application of AI." 

Deputy Executive Director of the VDMA Hartmut Rauen

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 870 billion euros. Around 80 percent of the machinery sold in the EU comes from a manufacturing plant in the domestic market.