The nationwide Packaging Day, which took place on June 17, 2025, was used by several associations of the packaging industry to point out structural causes of the current economic crisis. This is according to a press release from the German Packaging Institute e.V. (dvi), which is also the initiator of the position paper.
According to the involved associations, they see an excess of bureaucracy and regulation as obstacles to an upswing in the packaging industry.
"The burdens of excessive, often impractical bureaucracy and regulation cause severe structural problems. This concerns evidence, documentation, and reporting obligations, constantly new or amended legal requirements, and lengthy processes in planning and approval," explains Dr. Natalie Brandenburg, Managing Director of the German Packaging Institute e.V. (dvi).
According to the figures from a study commissioned by the VDMA, companies in the mechanical
and plant engineering sector have to consider around 3,900 regulations in the course of their usual business activities. As shown by the KfW SME panel 2024, bureaucracy costs SMEs about 1.5 billion working hours annually. "And that is only the factually measurable working time. Especially for the mostly medium-sized companies in our industry, the limit of resilience has been exceeded," Brandenburg adds.
According to the trade associations, there will be no sustainable upswing without fundamental reforms. Regarding bureaucracy and regulation, what is needed is moderation instead of mass, quality before quantity, reliability, and predictability, more expertise and less patronizing. According to the position paper, companies need room for innovation, growth, competitiveness, and environmental and climate protection that keeps the outcome in mind and does not have the opposite effect out of impractical idealism.
Examples against Abstraction
To illustrate the often abstract discussions about bureaucracy and regulation, the associations provided concrete insights through a series of examples on Packaging Day. These ranged from the impractical classification that all yogurt packaging under three liters is generally considered individually chargeable servings for immediate consumption, reporting obligations where identical data is sometimes reported to more than a dozen different locations, to production bans that lead to value creation moving to countries with lower environmental standards.
"Regulation is not inherently wrong, but balance is crucial. The focus in laws must also be on the outcome, not the intent. When regulations miss their target, contradict themselves, or are repeatedly changed, uncertainty arises instead of clarity. Companies are faced with multiple, sometimes unfulfillable obligations and lose a lot of time and resources that are then no longer available for
research, development, and actual value creation. Thus the actual goal is missed – and that harms not just the economy but also society," emphasize the association representatives.
Since 2015, the German Packaging Institute e.V. has been organizing Packaging Day annually in June.
"Packaging protects, informs, enables transport, and is a central lever for more sustainability. Packaging is not a problem, but part of the solution. It offers space for creativity, technology, sustainability, and entrepreneurial thinking. It is high-tech, circular economy, and design freedom. Our industry provides a wonderful mix of creativity, design, research, and technology and maps almost everything that is indispensable for people, the economy, and the environment through its value chain. On Packaging Day we want to talk about the great achievements of packaging and the packaging industry. Because that happens far too rarely,"
