Germany’s main industrial organisations drew a picture of caution and insecurity for 2026 during Monday’s first day of the country’s biggest trade fair for manufacturing industries, the Hannover Messe.
The umbrella organisation of manufacturing industries, Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI), had at the beginning of the year forecasted a gentle recovery for 2026. Now, given the Iran war and its repercussions, it anticipates stagnation year-on-year, its president, Peter Leibinger, said during a press conference at the beginning of the fair.
He noted that global industrial production went up last year, but Germany’s dropped by 1.5%. The utilisation of plants has remained under the long-term average for 11 quarters, the longest dry spell so far, Kallanish heard him say at the conference. “At least there is a bit of a silver lining, as order intake was slightly up in the fourth quarter 2025,” he added.
BDI shared the conference with the Association of the Electrical and Digital Industry, ZVEI, and the mechanical engineering association, VDMA. They unanimously complained about the burden of excess bureaucracy in Germany and Europe, which discourages companies from making investments in their home country, although they would want to.
“One US senator once told me that we Europeans make regulations for a technology before developing it; Americans develop first, then think about regulation,” said VDMA president Bertram Kawlath. He told of a recent visit to units of German companies located in Mexico, which are on stand-by to release investments at their sites. “So that revenue will be made in Mexico, not Germany,” he said.
He noted that Germany’s mechanical engineering industry has been short of €1 billion ($1.2 billion) per year in investments since Covid. “Any plant capacity without investment now will be missing in ten years from now, and this is a growing process,” he warned.
