Automotive Package: Patriots For Europe Demands End To Ideological Policies Destroying European Industry

Strasbourg, 16/12/2025 - As the European Commission presents its Automotive Package today, Patriots for Europe calls for an immediate course correction on policies that have driven Europe's car industry into crisis.

Three years after imposing a ban on new internal-combustion engines by 2035—without any impact assessment—Brussels is finally being forced to confront the consequences of its ideological agenda. The European automotive market has contracted by 20% since 2020. Across the continent, layoffs are multiplying, subcontractors are collapsing, and factory closures are spreading.

European manufacturers have invested more than €200 billion in a forced-march electrification, crushed by unrealistic standards and unfair foreign competition. Meanwhile, Washington and Beijing protect their industries with robust measures, while the EU limits itself to symbolic gestures. The result is devastating: Chinese vehicles now account for more than 15% of hybrid sales and 11% of electric vehicles sold in Europe.

Jordan Bardella, President of Patriots for Europe, stated: "Today marks the Commission's last chance to correct a strategic mistake. If the Union wants to remain an industrial power, it must stop denying itself the tools used by every major nation: targeted tariffs, local-content requirements, and technology-transfer obligations. The survival of an entire ecosystem—manufacturers, suppliers, subcontractors—is at stake."

Patriots for Europe demands that the upcoming debates establish genuine technological neutrality, restore the capacity of European industry to innovate, and prevent the erasure of a century of engineering excellence that made Europe the global cradle of the automobile.

The future of Europe's automotive industry is being decided now. We cannot afford to miss this moment.