Brussels/Frankfurt, 4 October 2021 – Commenting on the vote in the EU Parliament on the first technical criteria of the taxonomy regulation, VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann says:

"The European Parliament should reject the first technical criteria of the EU taxonomy on climate change mitigation and adaptation. These criteria discriminate against industries that are driving the green transformation. With their technologies, our machinery and plant manufacturers make a direct contribution to climate neutrality by enabling other industries to follow this path. This is not reflected in the current technical criteria and makes it much more difficult for our companies to access sustainable finance. Furthermore, it is also uncertain how our economic activities can be presented in a taxonomy-compliant way.

In this form, the current taxonomy leads to immense additional bureaucratic burden and costs for the machinery and plant engineering industry. It also results in a mammoth task for technology manufacturers who have to fulfil additional reporting obligations under the taxonomy. This misses the mark in terms of what medium-sized companies in particular can achieve."

A photo of VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann can be found here.