Panic in the Rusting Engine Room

When reality finally catches up with policy, the resulting political scrambling is always something to behold. For years, the regulatory machinery in Brussels and the political establishment in Berlin treated Germany’s automotive sector not as the nation’s economic backbone, but as an inconvenient climate target requiring stern correction. Now, with factory gates closing and order books shrinking, a panicked trio of state premiers has suddenly realized that regulating an industrial core out of existence has actual consequences.

Bavaria’s Markus Söder, Baden-Württemberg’s Cem Özdemir, and Lower Saxony’s Olaf Lies have dispatched a joint five-page letter to federal and European Union authorities. Their assessment is stark: the automotive sector faces irreversible damage. Last year alone, the industry lost 52,000 jobs—a grim figure for a country where skyrocketing energy costs, relentless bureaucracy, and punitive taxation are systematically driving capital elsewhere.

The state executives are demanding an immediate retreat from central planning. Chief among their demands is scuttling the EU’s proposed 2035 ban on internal combustion engines in favor of true technological openness. Together we want to sustainably strengthen our key technology in tough international competition, instead of continuing to weaken it through self-inflicted harm like the EU, Söder stated, highlighting that advanced combustion technology still has a vital global future. Beyond scrapping arbitrary prohibitions, the leaders insist on modifying European fleet emission thresholds to prevent disastrous penalty fines.

Energy policy failures feature prominently in the critique. To make electric vehicles viable for ordinary citizens, Lies argues that electricity taxes on charging must be slashed to the absolute minimum, alongside reduced grid fees and expanded infrastructure across Europe. Meanwhile, Özdemir has turned his sight toward Brussels, demanding robust EU industrial policies to shield domestic producers from heavily state-subsidized Chinese imports rather than passively watching local production get displaced.

Even the FDP has joined the outcry, calling for the total elimination of the vehicle tax to ease the burden on drivers. Whether these urgent pleas will shake the European Union out of its bureaucratic complacency is another matter. The EU machine excels at issuing decrees, but it remains remarkably blind to the economic ruin left in its wake.

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com