Frankfurt, 15 March 2024 - VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann comments on the adoption of the EU Supply Chain Directive in the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU Member States:

• "The mechanical and plant engineering industry finds it completely incomprehensible that the draft directive for a European due diligence law was adopted today in its present form. This will create further competitive disadvantages for European industry on global markets."
   
• "The partial amendments made in the final minute do nothing to change the fact that this draft directive is poorly crafted and impractical."
   
• "Raising the employee thresholds above which the law is to apply will not provide any protection for small and medium-sized industrial companies. This is because large companies will impose the same obligations on their smaller partners - if only to minimize liability risk, regardless of what the directive says. The law will have no positive effect on the set goal of respecting human rights."
   
• "We therefore strongly urge the European Parliament to pull the emergency brake at the last minute! The directive needs a fundamental reboot."

The VDMA represents 3600 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies. The industry stands for innovation, export-orientation and medium-sized businesses. The companies employ a total of 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. It accounts for an estimated turnover of around 860 billion euros in the European Union. Around 80 per cent of the machines sold in the EU come from a production facility in the internal market.