Dear all, 

What a pleasure it was to welcome so many of our members, friends and colleagues at our networking reception earlier this week!  With this informal occasion, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate past and present collaboration in a convivial setting. The net zero agenda is uppermost in many minds these days and we are the industries that make it happen, but the only way we will all succeed on this path to net zero is through dialogue and close collaboration. This evening was about that, and we were very pleased to share it with representatives of the European Parliament, the Commission and Permanent Representations of Member States, as well as with our members, and representatives from fellow industry associations and NGOs. 

Collaboration was also very much in the air at Hannover Messe last week, and in the technologies on display, whether to realise the sector coupling that is fundamental to the clean energy transition, or to create a true open manufacturing data space (dubbed Manufacturing-X) to take Industry 4.0 to the next level. All around the Hannover halls, you could feel the energy released by traditional silos busting open and truly creative collaboration happening – across different parts of the value chain, across hardware and software, across countries and sectors, and across private and public sectors. On that note, it was good to see – and be able to support – the European Commission taking a bigger than ever part in the fair, in recognition of what has become increasingly clear in recent times: that Europe's future depends on competitive and sustainable high-tech manufacturing. 

Of course that realisation is nothing new to us here at Orgalim: it inspires and drives our work daily. In recent weeks, our efforts to help secure Europe's future as a clean manufacturing hub have ranged from contributing our industries' views on ensuring cyber resilience, to supporting effective implementation of the Machinery Regulation, to providing input on packaging and packaging waste rules. We continue working tirelessly to ensure the new EU data policy truly supports and does not dampen the dynamism of European industry's digital transformation. And of course, the work on the crucial Net Zero Industry Act is just getting underway. There will be no shortage of topics for our next opportunity to bring the membership together, at our Spring Convention in June. I look forward to seeing many of you again then, in what will hopefully be a bright and balmy Brussels. 

Best regards,