Frankfurt/Brussels, 2 December 2025 – The European Commission is proposing a ResourceEU plan with the aim of reducing the EU's dependence on raw material imports from China. VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann comments:
 

• ‘It is right that the European Commission is presenting a plan with ResourceEU to make the EU less dependent on raw material imports. This is the EU's response to its extreme dependence on China for rare earths, for example.’

• ‘The suspension of China's tightened export controls on these rare earths gives the EU only one year to put effective measures in place. If China continues to restrict access to these important raw materials or even blocks it completely, large parts of industrial production in Europe will come to a standstill.’

• ‘Europe needs an action plan consisting of several initiatives: establishing cooperation with other regions outside China, diversifying supply sources, further expanding support programmes for innovative projects, facilitating the reuse of rare earths, and building up its own manufacturing and, in some cases, processing capacities.’

• ‘In particular, it is essential in the medium term to build up Europe's own manufacturing and processing capacities for critical raw materials. The technologies and skills are widely available in European mechanical engineering – including in recycling and in the search for substitutes.’

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.