EU automakers lobby for protectionist policies amid global competition surge, obscuring systemic industrial decline
Original framing: “EU’s Top Carmakers Unite to Push for ‘Made in Europe’ Plans” — Bloomberg
Scientific literature on industrial policy consistently shows that protectionism alone rarely fosters innovation; targeted R&D subsidies and workforce training are more effective. Studies on automotive supply chains highlight how financialization (e.g., share buybacks, dividend payouts) diverts capital from long-term investment, contributing to Europe’s current competitiveness gap. The IPCC’s mitigation pathways emphasize the need to reduce car dependency, yet EU policy remains locked in a high-carbon industrial model.
The EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ push is a symptom of a deeper crisis: a financialized industrial model that prioritized shareholder returns over innovation, outsourced production to low-wage regions, and now seeks state protection to mask its own failures.
This mirrors historical patterns of industrial decline, from 1980s US automakers to Japan’s 1990s stagnation, where protectionism delayed necessary restructuring. Yet the EU’s approach ignores alternatives emerging globally—worker cooperatives in Argentina, MaaS integration in Finland, and degrowth-aligned industrial policy in Africa—all of which offer pathways to reimagine mobility without replicating the extractivist, labor-exploitative models of the past. The trickster’s insight reveals the absurdity of a system where firms that offshored production now demand subsidies, while marginalized voices—autoworkers, climate-vulnerable communities, and Global South partners—are excluded from the conversation. A systemic solution requires dismantling the financial-industrial complex that underpins this crisis and rebuilding mobility systems rooted in sufficiency, equity, and ecological integrity.