【Brühl, Germa】Fear of Shutdown: EU Directives Cause Concern – Brühl

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Editor’s Note

This article highlights the significant economic pressures facing Germany’s foundry industry, including skilled labor shortages and high energy costs, with a specific focus on the Eisenwerk in Brühl. It details a recent meeting between company management and local CDU politicians following the federal election.

Die CDU-Abgeordneten Seif und Golland tauschen sich mit der Geschäftsführung des Eisenwerks Brühl aus. | Foto: Eisenwerk Brühl
Concerns Over Potential Closure

The current economic challenges such as skilled labor shortages, excessive bureaucracy, high energy costs, and the industrial transformation towards climate neutrality are also burdening the German foundry industry and thus the Eisenwerk (Ironworks) in Brühl.

Shortly after the federal election, the re-elected CDU member of the Bundestag, Detlef Seif, and the CDU state parliament member, Gregor Golland, met with the management of the ironworks, Matthias Pampus-Meder and Thomas Friedrich, to discuss the concerns of the industry. The focus was particularly on the consequences of the European Commission’s tightened environmental policy.

The Eisenwerk Brühl GmbH has been producing engine blocks from cast iron for renowned automotive manufacturers for around 100 years and currently employs more than 1,500 people. This makes it the second-largest foundry in Germany and one of the ten largest foundries in all of Europe. Furthermore, the company is the largest employer in the Rhein-Erft district.

As Pampus-Meder and Friedrich explained, the current European environmental legislation is causing the company great concern, as it could, in an extreme case, lead to the closure of the ironworks.

The background is the new BREF document, which came into force in December 2024 and must now be transposed into the national legislation of EU member states. BREF stands for “Best Available Techniques Reference”. It is a document from the European Commission that describes the best available techniques (BAT) for avoiding and reducing the environmental impacts of an industrial sector and must be considered by authorities in the EU for plant permits.

“The BREF document envisages a further tightening of emission limit values. These have been reduced so significantly that they cannot be achieved even with the best technology we use,” emphasized Pampus-Meder and Friedrich.

The ironworks in Brühl is already investing large sums in climate-friendly measures. Currently, 52 million euros are flowing into new exhaust air purification systems, which use a completely new technology to reduce emissions and account for climate protection.

“Until now, only thermal afterburning with natural gas was an option for cleaning the necessary exhaust air volumes, which is no longer acceptable from a climate perspective, and that for relatively low-pollution exhaust air,” stated the management. “Together with a renowned plant manufacturer, we have developed a new process for concentrating pollutants, which leads to significantly lower exhaust air volumes that then have to be afterburned. For this purpose, a pilot plant was installed in consultation with and under the supervision of the Cologne district government, with which the sustainable effect of the process was proven over two years. Through this technology, the exhaust air volume that needs to be thermally treated can be reduced by 90 percent. This is the most modern and advanced solution to best achieve emission protection and climate protection for large exhaust air volumes.”

The new EU limit values could be achieved with special technologies, but these are only applicable for low exhaust air volumes.

Thus, the Eisenwerk Brühl would additionally have to thermally afterburn correspondingly large quantities of exhaust air, as the exhaust air from all dust extraction systems in the casting production area would not meet the new limit values even with the state-of-the-art new technology.

“That would be a climate disaster like no other – moreover, these investments and operating costs would not be economically viable. Then the shutdown of the plant would inevitably be on the table,” Pampus-Meder and Friedrich made clear to the two Christian Democrats.

Seif and Golland want to advocate for the Brühl site and communicate the problem to the future federal government.

Even if a potential closure is not up for discussion in the short term, the right course must be set promptly now.

“This is not just about the loss of a major employer in the region and around 1,500 jobs, but subsequently, the craft businesses and service providers that work for the Eisenwerk Brühl would also suffer,” explained the two parliamentarians. “Furthermore, the Eisenwerk Brühl is the sole supplier for most of the products manufactured there – one can imagine what a shutdown would mean for customers and the supplier industry.”

Seif warned of creeping deindustrialization:

“Should the ironworks actually be forced to burn the exhaust air with fossil fuels, this would be neither environmentally friendly nor economical. The company’s efforts and ingenuity in keeping the air clean need political support. The medium-sized businesses in our country are the guarantors for good jobs and training places.”
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⏰ Published on: March 20, 2025