VDMA is participating in a panel discussion on building Europe's next infrastructure alongside Daniela Schwarzer, Kirsten Dunlop, and Hermann Hauser, moderated by Corinna Milborn, at the European Forum Alpbach in August 2026.

The VDMA represents 3,500 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.