On the EU's Digital Omnibus: "The AI Act, Data Act and Cyber Resilience Act must be fundamentally revised!"
Date
Wed, 11/19/2025
Frankfurt/Brussels, 19 November 2025 – VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann says of the European Commission's Digital Omnibus:
- "It is a first step in the right direction that the Digital Omnibus addresses three pieces of legislation at once – the AI Act, the Data Act and the General Data Protection Regulation – thereby providing initial relief for industry. However, this is not enough to ensure the competitiveness of Europe as a digital location. There is a lack of courage to take geo-economic realities into account, review key elements of EU digital legislation and significantly reduce bureaucracy."
- "Companies must be freed from excessive reporting requirements, double regulation and legal uncertainty. To this end, the AI Regulation and Data Act should be fundamentally revised. In its current form, the Data Act jeopardises companies' know-how, as trade secrets are not sufficiently protected. Restricting it to consumer products, on the other hand, would promote entrepreneurial freedom and digital innovation."
- "It remains problematic that the Cyber Resilience Act is to remain unchanged in the Digital Omnibus, despite its technical weaknesses. The planned simplification of reporting channels for IT security incidents is particularly critical: this must not conflict with established national procedures. Clear guidelines are needed on how existing processes can either be completely replaced or seamlessly integrated in order to avoid duplicate structures and legal uncertainty."
- "It is now crucial that the Council and the European Parliament swiftly adopt the proposals that will provide initial relief for businesses. The proposed technical changes should give little cause for controversial discussion. After that, it will be important to continue along the path that has been taken with greater courage so that businesses can find their way out of the regulatory jungle."
VDMA represents 3,600 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.