• "25 years of negotiations are more than enough! That is why there can be no more excuses and no more delays. The EU-Council of Ministers must act now and give its approval to the Mercosur Agreement."
• "The Free Trade Agreement between the EU and the Mercosur countries is of utmost importance for the competitiveness of European industry and mechanical engineering. Currently, the tariff burden on Mercosur countries is 11 percent, which represents a significant cost burden for our companies."
• "The Mercosur agreement would also send a much-needed signal in favor of rules-based trade. And our South American partners will not wait forever for a decision.”

VDMA’s Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann

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 in both the EU-27 and Germany. In the European Union, it represents an estimated turnover of 870 billion euros. Around 80 per cent of the machinery sold in the EU comes from a domestic production facility.