Brussels/Frankfurt, 15 March 2022 – Commenting on the trilogue agreement on the International Procurement Instrument (IPI), Ulrich Ackermann, Head of the Foreign Trade Department at VDMA, says:

“The agreement on a new instrument for international procurement (IPI) is an important door opener for the SME-dominated mechanical engineering industry. If the EU applies this new instrument consistently, European companies in the mechanical engineering sector will finally have better access to the public procurement market in third countries. In future, bids from third countries can be given a price surcharge in EU public procurement or excluded from an award procedure if the third country refuses to open its public procurement market to EU suppliers in negotiations with the EU-Commission. However, excluding

third-country bidders should only be a last resort; third-country public procurement bids are often beneficial to the engineering sector”.

A photo of Ulrich Ackermann, Head of the Foreign Trade Department, can be found here.

The VDMA represents more than 3,400 German and European companies of the mechanical engineering industry. The industry stands for innovation, export orientation and medium-sized businesses. The companies employ around four million people in Europe, more than one million of them in Germany. Mechanical and plant engineering represents a European turnover volume of around 800 billion euros. With a net value added of around 270 billion euros, it contributes the highest share of the entire manufacturing sector to the European gross domestic product.