Brussels, 27 October 2025 – Commenting on the announcement of an EU initiative aimed at reducing the EU's dependence on raw material imports from China, VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann said:
 

• "The further tightening of Chinese export controls on rare earths shows once again that Europe must become more independent in terms of raw material imports. It is therefore right that the EU is now seeking a plan of action that will reduce Europe's dependence on China in the short, medium and long term."

• "It will be crucial that the EU does not only consider a few industries when defining the measures. The entire European industrial SME sector is dependent on access to raw materials. Permanent magnets are a particular focus here for mechanical and plant engineering."

• "Building up our own manufacturing and processing capacities for critical raw materials in Europe is essential in the medium term. The technologies and skills are available in European mechanical engineering – including in recycling and in the search for substitutes."

• "However, the framework conditions must be designed in such a way that a market can develop for these raw materials mined and processed in Europe. The RESourceEU platform proposed by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is a good approach to strengthening rare earth raw material cycles in Europe. In mechanical engineering, however, many solutions are highly specialised and tailored to individual products. RESourceEU must take this diversity into account!"

• "In addition, more foresight is needed in European regulation. Increasingly stringent energy efficiency requirements often drive up the use of rare earths. This is a classic conflict of objectives: a 2 to 3 per cent increase in efficiency often comes at the cost of significantly higher consumption of critical raw materials. Anyone who is serious about sustainability must address this openly and strike a balance."

VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann

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.