EURATEX - European Apparel and Textile Confederation

EURATEX at the Venice Sustainable Fashion Forum 2025 We were glad to take part in this year’s Venice Sustainable Fashion Forum, where EURATEX President Mario Jorge Machado joined industry and policy leaders to discuss how EU legislation can drive a more sustainable and competitive textile ecosystem. Europe is moving fast in setting ambitious sustainability standards — and that is the right direction. But to truly make a difference, these rules must apply globally. A clean Europe in a dirty world would not deliver on our environmental goals, nor ensure fair competition for European manufacturers. "How can Europe strengthen its textile and fashion industry by combining innovation, sustainability, and competitiveness? A strong Industrial Deal for Europe, fair trade rules — including ETS and CBAM adjustments for textiles — and the importance of keeping production and know-how in Europe.” At EURATEX, we continue to advocate for a balanced approach: sustainability and competitiveness must go hand in hand. We support legislation that is enforceable, fair, and globally aligned, ensuring that every product entering the European market meets the same high standards as those produced within the EU. Thanks to The European House-Ambrosetti and Confindustria Moda for the invitation and for organising a great event. #VeniceSustainableFashionForum #Sustainability #Textiles #Fashion #CircularEconomy #EUTextiles #SustainableFashion #MadeInEurope

🌍Enhancing circular innovation across borders As part of TCLFSkillBridge, we're not just connecting regions, but also people. The freshly-started Mobility Programme is unlocking new ways of thinking, through cross-visits between project signatories. In October, Eleonora Foschi from ENEA embarked on a transformative exchange to the Borås region in Sweden, an internationally recognized hub for circular economy innovation. Hosted by Borås Stad, a key partner in #METASKILLS4TCLF and member of the Borås Textile & Clothing Regional Skills Partnership, the visit offered Eleonora a front-row seat to cutting-edge practices in sustainable design and circular business models through: ✅ 9 conference sessions and 2 interactive workshops from the ECOSYSTEX community in Gothenburg; ✅ visits to over 10 cutting-edge labs at the Textile Fashion Center in Borås; ✅ meetings with 7 circular textile experts from different Swedish research teams. “The exchange was highly inspirational, and the site visits were particularly valuable for their immersive nature. The visits to student and research labs were especially intriguing, as they showcased the significant investments made by the Borås municipality and the Swedish government to sustain the vitality of the textile industry by educating the next generation of designers, buyers, sellers, and technicians, with sustainability at its core.” - Eleonora Foschi. From hands-on approaches to fostering a circular mindset in building bridges between research and industry, this exchange is a blueprint for how mobility can spark systemic change. 🔁 Innovation travels fast when we open doors to collaboration. #TCLFSkillBridge #TCLFSkillsAlliance #TCLFPactforSkills

📊 EURATEX Economic Update – Q2 2025 Europe’s textile and clothing industry continues to face challenging times, with employment and production both under pressure. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, jobs in textiles are down by 13% and by 16% in clothing, reflecting weaker demand, high costs, and rising import competition. In the last quarter alone, employment fell by 6.1% in textiles and 1.5% in clothing, with Spain and Italy standing out as positive exceptions. Despite the downturn, business confidence in the clothing sector is improving, showing the first signs of stabilization for the months ahead. 🔹 EURATEX continues to call for policies that support competitiveness, skills, and industrial resilience across Europe’s textile value chain. #EUTextiles #Employment #IndustryUpdate #MadeInEurope #Competitiveness

Reflecting on the Annual Conference of Gesamtverband der deutschen Textil- und Modeindustrie e.V. (Textile+Mode) – united for a stronger European textile industry 🇪🇺 Yesterday, the members of Textil+Mode, part of the EURATEX network, came together for their annual conference to discuss the pressing challenges facing the European textile and fashion industry. Inspiring contributions from Gitta Connemann and Ingeborg Neumann shed light on the sector’s critical situation: ➡️ Rising labour, tax, and energy costs ➡️ Intensifying competition from Asian platforms such as Shein and Temu ➡️ The urgent need for investment in innovation and transformation It became clear that many of these issues cannot be solved by national policy alone — they require coordinated action at the EU level. As the European Apparel and Textile Confederation, EURATEX continues to support its member associations in driving competitiveness, sustainability, and innovation across Europe’s textile value chain. Together, we are working to ensure that Europe remains a strong, innovative, and fair place for textile production. 💪🌍 #TextileIndustry #Innovation #Sustainability #Europe #Manufacturing #Policy #EU

Don't miss out: two key Skills events this week - still time to register! Join the European skills community for two dynamic events happening this week. It's your chance to connect, collaborate, and explore the latest initiatives shaping the future of skills across Europe. ECOSYSTEX Insights Series #17 22 October 2025, 10:00–11:30 CET (online) This session will mark the launch of the ECOSYSTEX Skills & Education Working Group activities and will present three Erasmus+ projects driving forward training and skills development for the Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear (TCLF) sectors: • #AEQUALIS4TCLF – foundations for skills and education across Europe • #SiTproject – innovative training pathways for a green and circular transition • #IMASUS – bridging research and practice for sustainable fashion design Register here: https://lnkd.in/eP5sQH5e Pact for Skills Networking Event 23 October 2025, 10:00–15:00 CEST (online) Organised by the European Commission, this event provides a platform for Pact members to explore challenges and opportunities in upskilling and reskilling, share experiences, and foster collaboration across partnerships and ecosystems. The programme will include a Commission welcome, #PactforSkills highlights, a panel on skills intelligence and policy, practical information sessions for members, and AI-supported matchmaking to facilitate networking. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eKW5kvbQ #TCLFSkillsAlliance #TCLFPactforSkills

Did you know military equipment can also be recycled? 🔄 Hilaturas Arnau, S.L., a proud RegioGreenTex partner, is proof that when we talk about textile recycling we can go far beyond just fashion. 🛡️Through the Utile Project (EDF – European Defence Fund), the company helps recycle soldiers’ PPE, helmets, and bulletproof vests, turning them into new protective gear. 🧵By reusing advanced fibres like PBO, PBI, and PI, Hilaturas Arnau enables extreme-performance textiles that meet the highest standards of safety and durability. 🇪🇺 This innovation supports European self-sufficiency, allowing sensitive defence products to be manufactured locally and tailored to strategic needs. ♻️Recycling technical textiles isn’t just sustainable - it’s smart, circular, and essential. #HilaturasArnau #RegioGreenTex #TextileRecycling #CircularEconomy #EuropeanDefence #Innovation

Traceability and Digital Product Passport: Industry Insights from Textile Exchange 2025 At the #TextileExchange2025 Conference in Lisbon, discussions on traceability and the Digital Product Passport (DPP) brought together hundreds of companies and key partners in CIRPASS2 such as Avery Dennison and EON. 🔍 Main takeaways from Mauro Scalia: Challenges: The biggest question remains — how can companies best prepare for DPP? The EU will define key performance indicators and data requirements in the coming year, but achieving true interoperability between systems is still a major task. Opportunities: DPP will help companies gain a deeper understanding of their supply chains — far beyond traditional metrics. A key message to IT providers: Before asking businesses for more data, check what information is already being shared on existing platforms to avoid duplication and improve efficiency. The discussion highlighted both the complexity and potential of DPP — a transformative step towards transparency and sustainability in the textile value chain. with Ina Budde , Andreas Schneider, Adele Stafford, Evonne Tan, Emily Crumley #DPP #Traceability #Sustainability #CIRPASS2 #Textiles

💡 Sharing know-how for a stronger and skillful Europe! Today, EURATEX joined the workshop "Equipping European SMEs with Skills & Technologies for the Digital Transformation", hosted by Small Business Standards (SBS), alongside European DIGITAL SME Alliance, SME Safety, and Deutscher Textilreinigungs-Verband e.V.. Pedro Filipe Gonçalves from #EURATEX showcased the #TCLF Skills Alliance’s efforts to build powerful partnerships and networks that accelerate digital skills uptake. This includes launching regional skills partnerships and contributing to the ECOSYSTEX Skills & Education working group. 🤝 The workshop was a great chance to hear directly from policymakers, standards experts, and tech providers about what’s driving SME digitalisation across Europe. 📌 Key highlights: • EU Commission’s vision for industrial digitalisation & SME support; • Tech trends: artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, identification and labelling, and digital product passports; • SME case studies illustrating digital transformation in PPE, textile services and medical devices; • Initiatives to build digital skills and ecosystem support, including the European Digital Skills & Jobs Platform and sectoral skills partnerships. Let’s keep building on the momentum! #TCLFSkillsAlliance #AEQUALIS4TCLF #METASKILLS4TCLF #TCLFSkillBridge #DigitalSkills #SkillsForEurope

👗 Did you know the textile and clothing sector employs nearly 1.3 million people across more than 200,000 companies in Europe, deeply embedded in regional economies? During #EURegionsWeek, EURATEX shines a spotlight on the textile and apparel sector, highlighting the thousands of SMEs rooted in Europe’s regions that drive local innovation, create jobs, and foster sustainable growth. All across Europe, these enterprises work alongside clusters, research centres, training providers, universities and public authorities. EURATEX connects these actors across borders, so that local capabilities become European outcomes: 🧵 Innovation: Later this year, RegioTex 2.0 will relaunch as a hands-on platform for textile clusters, associations, and regional authorities. It helps them team up across regions to work on projects focused on circularity, digitalisation, and advanced materials. Thanks to its link with the S3 Thematic Partnership for Textiles, RegioTex 2.0 connects innovation directly to policy. The goal? Turn regional collaboration into funded pilot projects and scalable solutions that strengthen Europe’s textile industry. 🎓 Skills: Under the TCLF Pact for Skills, projects such as #METASKILLS4TCLF, #AEQUALIS4TCLF and #TCLFSkillBridge are mapping industrial footprints, engaging regional partners and working with training providers to build regional skills ecosystems. Together, these initiatives aim to establish up to 20 TCLF regional skills partnerships, enabling regions to anticipate future skills demand, upskill their workforce, and secure competitiveness in the twin transition. ♻️ Sustainability: the #RegioGreenTex project, a EU-funded initiative launched under the European Green Deal to strengthen textile circularity across Europe’s regions. Coordinated by EURATEX, the project brings together 43 partners from 11 regions in 8 countries, uniting industry, research, government, and civil society in a shared mission. Its ambition is to build a dynamic ecosystem for textile recycling, to support small and medium-sized enterprises in developing innovative materials with higher recycled content, and to establish five regional recycling hubs. From Tuscany and Piemonte to Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Catalonia, Norte Portugal and North-East Romania, Europe’s textile regions are turning ambition into action: scaling recycling, modernising production, and developing the skills that the twin transition demands for a greener future. #RegioTex #TextileInnovation #CircularEconomy #DigitalTransformation #SkillsForIndustry #TwinTransition #EURegions #TCLFPactForSkills #EURATEX

On Monday, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) has adopted the Omnibus Simplification compromise, paving the way for a plenary vote expected next week — the final step before trilogue negotiations can begin. This Omnibus package aims to simplify key sustainability legislations, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D). These reforms are intended to reduce administrative burden, increase legal certainty, and make sustainability obligations more proportionate and workable, especially for SMEs and mid-sized companies. For many businesses in the textile and clothing industry, the complexity and pace of regulatory change have created uncertainty and delayed investments in circularity, innovation, and sustainable production. The JURI vote therefore represents an important step towards a clearer, more predictable, and investment-friendly framework. EURATEX welcomes this progress and continues to advocate for a sustainability framework that is ambitious yet achievable — one that enables companies to focus on delivering tangible environmental and social results rather than managing excessive reporting requirements. In parallel, EURATEX has submitted its recommendations to EFRAG on the simplification of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). These proposals call for: 🔹 transition periods for complex disclosures, 🔹 sector-specific guidelines tailored to textiles, 🔹 clearer and harmonised indicators, and 🔹 stronger safeguards for data comparability and confidentiality. Together, these initiatives — the Omnibus simplification and the ESRS review — can help build a coherent, stable, and business-oriented sustainability framework that supports Europe’s twin goals of competitiveness and climate ambition. #duediligence #omnibus #simplification #CSRD #CS3D #ESRS #textiles