European Foundry Industry Sentiment

June 2026: 

European Foundry Industry shows signs of sta­bil­isa­tion in June 2026 as man­u­fac­tur­ing recov­ery continues.

The latest European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) pub­lished monthly by European Foundry Fed­er­a­tion (EFF) shows that the European foundry industry recor­ded its first mean­ing­ful improve­ment in busi­ness sen­ti­ment after sev­eral chal­len­ging months. While iron and steel foundries repor­ted stronger busi­ness con­fid­ence in June, the non-fer­rous sec­tor con­tin­ued to demon­strate resi­li­ence des­pite a slight mod­er­a­tion from excep­tion­ally high levels.

The gradual improve­ment in foundry sen­ti­ment coin­cides with a sta­bil­ising European man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. Accord­ing to the latest sur­vey, the Euro­zone Man­u­fac­tur­ing Pur­chas­ing Man­agers’ Index (PMI) reached 51.4 points in June 2026, com­pared with 51.6 points in May 2026. Although the PMI eased mar­gin­ally month-on-month, it remained above the 50-point threshold for the second con­sec­ut­ive month, con­firm­ing con­tin­ued expan­sion in man­u­fac­tur­ing activ­ity across the euro area and offer­ing cau­tious optim­ism for Europe’s cast­ing industry.

Iron foundries regain confidence

European iron foundries recor­ded a sig­ni­fic­ant improve­ment in June after sev­eral months of declin­ing con­fid­ence. The assess­ment of the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation increased by 2.3 points to 98.6 index points, while expect­a­tions for the next six months rose by 3.8 points to 86.4 index points. The improve­ment sug­gests that demand is begin­ning to sta­bil­ise as man­u­fac­tur­ing activ­ity gradu­ally recov­ers. Nev­er­the­less, expect­a­tions remain below the long-term aver­age, indic­at­ing that com­pan­ies con­tinue to adopt a cau­tious out­look for the second half of the year.

Steel foundries remain under pres­sure des­pite improvement

The European steel foundry sec­tor con­tin­ues to be the weak­est seg­ment of the industry, although June brought encour­aging signs of recov­ery. The assess­ment of the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation increased by 1.5 points to 74.2 index points, while expect­a­tions for the next six months improved by 2.3 points to 98.9 index points. These res­ults indic­ate improv­ing con­fid­ence; how­ever, steel foundries con­tinue to oper­ate under dif­fi­cult mar­ket con­di­tions char­ac­ter­ised by sub­dued invest­ment demand, low capa­city util­isa­tion, elev­ated energy costs and strong com­pet­it­ive pres­sure from inter­na­tional markets.

Non-fer­rous foundries con­tinue to outperform

The European non-fer­rous foundry industry remains the strongest-per­form­ing seg­ment of the European cast­ing sec­tor. In June, the assess­ment of the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation declined mar­gin­ally by 0.9 points to 131.9 index points, while expect­a­tions for the next six months decreased by 1.3 points to 146.1 index points. Des­pite this slight cor­rec­tion, both indic­at­ors remain sub­stan­tially above his­tor­ical aver­ages, reflect­ing sus­tained demand from indus­tries driv­ing Europe’s green and digital trans­itions, includ­ing elec­tri­fic­a­tion, renew­able energy, light­weight mobil­ity, elec­trical engin­eer­ing and advanced manufacturing.

Man­u­fac­tur­ing indic­at­ors point to gradual recovery

The June FISI res­ults are con­sist­ent with broader devel­op­ments across the European eco­nomy. The Euro­zone Man­u­fac­tur­ing PMI remained in expan­sion ter­rit­ory at 51.4 points, only slightly below May’s 51.6 points, indic­at­ing that man­u­fac­tur­ing out­put con­tin­ues to grow, albeit at a some­what slower pace. As foundries typ­ic­ally exper­i­ence changes in demand shortly after devel­op­ments in indus­trial pro­duc­tion, these fig­ures sug­gest that busi­ness con­di­tions may con­tinue to improve dur­ing the com­ing months. The Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator (BCI) for the euro area also con­tin­ued its gradual recov­ery, sup­port­ing the view that indus­trial con­fid­ence is slowly strength­en­ing after a pro­longed period of weakness.

Out­look

June 2026 marks an encour­aging step towards sta­bil­isa­tion for the European foundry industry. The recov­ery remains uneven across sec­tors: while iron and steel foundries are show­ing the first signs of improv­ing con­fid­ence, non-fer­rous foundries con­tinue to bene­fit from struc­tural growth trends linked to decar­bon­isa­tion, elec­tri­fic­a­tion and advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing. Nev­er­the­less, import­ant chal­lenges remain. European foundries con­tinue to face high energy costs, geo­pol­it­ical uncer­tainty, increas­ing imports of cast­ings from third coun­tries, and sub­dued invest­ment in sev­eral key cus­tomer indus­tries. Sus­tain­ing the recov­ery will depend on stronger indus­trial demand, sup­port­ive European indus­trial policies and con­tin­ued improve­ments in man­u­fac­tur­ing activity.

European Foundry Fed­er­a­tion (EFF) will con­tinue to mon­itor devel­op­ments through its monthly Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) and provide timely mar­ket intel­li­gence to poli­cy­makers, industry stake­hold­ers and European foundries

The FISI – European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator – is the earli­est avail­able com­pos­ite indic­ator provid­ing inform­a­tion on the European foundry industry per­form­ance. It is pub­lished by EFF —  European Foundry Fed­er­a­tion every month and is based on sur­vey responses of the European foundry industry. The EFF mem­bers are asked to give their assess­ment of the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation in the foundry sec­tor and their expect­a­tions for the next six months.

The BCI – Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator – is an indic­ator pub­lished by the European Com­mis­sion. The BCI eval­u­ates devel­op­ment con­di­tions of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in the euro area every month and uses five bal­ances of opin­ion from industry sur­vey: pro­duc­tion trends, order books, export order books, stocks and pro­duc­tion expectations.

Pur­chas­ing Man­agers’ Index (PMI) -  in the Euro area is an indic­ator of the eco­nomic health of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. It is based on such indic­at­ors as: new orders, invent­ory levels, pro­duc­tion, sup­plier deliv­er­ies and the employ­ment environment.

EFF Con­tact:

Wit­old Dobosz
Gen­eral Sec­ret­ariat
mail: info@eff-eu.org