Welcome everyone, to our announcement of our 2023 first half year results. After achieving record results in the previous year, the first half of this year presented a notable challenge, with a sharp decline in demand across the European paper and packaging markets. This decline can be attributed to several factors, beginning with the continuation of inventory reduction, compounded by the growing restraint in consumer spending due to inflation, and in some cases, we also saw a temporary shift back to plastic usage. This unprecedented volume drop in Europe was exacerbated by the loss of the Russian market, which was very important for us, and the weakness in overseas export markets. MM Board & Paper had two major long-term planned capital expenditure projects at the Frohnleiten and Neuss mills, necessitating significant downtime for two key machines in the first half year.
The positive thing is that these CapEx were successfully completed, and they clearly enhance our leadership in recycled board technology, both in terms of technology and costs. Additionally, the annual maintenance downtime at our Količevo mill in Q2 contributed to an overall decrease of around 30% in board and paper capacity utilization compared to last year's level. As already communicated by mid-June, this substantial volume reduction in MM Board & Paper resulted in a significant decline of more than 60% in half-year group operating profit, notwithstanding the positive performance in our packaging division. Notably, MM Packaging achieved strong results, factoring in restructuring costs of EUR 16 million due to the closure of a German plant and the divestiture of our highly profitable Russian packaging plants.
The successful integration of the pharmaceutical packaging acquisitions from the previous year, Essentra Packaging and Eson Pac, led to improvements in quality, service, and productivity, along with the streamlined organizational structure. Overall, the pharma and healthcare sector exceeded our business plan expectations and demonstrated the resilience of this business in the present difficult market landscape. From a current perspective, the third quarter does not show signs of improvements, primarily due to a weak economy and continued sluggish private consumption. While many input costs have decreased, there has been a slight increase in paper for recycling costs, and overall, prices have decreased. For the third quarter, we again expect substantial machine downtime in the MM Board & Paper division as we are aligning our production with market demand. Furthermore, we had scheduled modernization downtime at our Kočevje mill in Slovenia for the third quarter.
Due to the recent floods' impact on the mill, the exact timing still has to be determined. In packaging, we see reduced orders, mainly in the food segment. In response to these developments, we have initiated a comprehensive profit and cash protection program aimed at achieving cost savings, optimizing working capital, and reducing new capital expenditures. Our primary focus is to swiftly restore margins, reduce net debt, and overall enhance the competitiveness in these challenging markets. Our commitment to long-term value creation, resilience, and sustainable growth remains at the core of the MM Group's business model. Through strengthening our competitiveness and quality leadership during our recent transformation and our strategic investments in a competitive asset base and product portfolio, MM is very well-positioned to benefit from a promising long-term perspective.
Most important, the entire MM team is strongly dedicated to take swift, responsible, and decisive actions so that we will emerge from the current market crisis even stronger and even more resilient. My daily interactions with our team instill a high level of confidence that we are navigating the right path forward. Thank you.