Unrealistic targets under the Green Deal harmed European carmakers and helped foreign rivals, says MEP Jens Gieseke. But upcoming changes in EU policy are a chance to make amends.
The European Parliament’s declaration of a climate emergency and demand for a Green Deal in November 2019 now feels like a bygone era. With the Green Deal and Fit for 55 packages since rebranded in favour of industrial capacity and ‘competitiveness’, pressure is mounting on the EU to scale back key climate commitments.
Europe’s automotive industry is at the heart of this focus, and the European Commission has put the pedal to the floor. The bloc’s legacy automakers, a cornerstone of European economic output, were legally obliged to enter the electric age and discontinue the combustion engine. However, with the industry slow to adapt to green legislation, the Commission has stepped in and offered a lifeline.
Jens Gieseke, a German MEP with the centre-right European People’s Party, has emerged as an outspoken crusader for the cause. He, alongside much of the automotive industry itself, welcomed the publication of the Commission’s Industrial Action Plan for the European automotive sector in March as a step in the right direction.
It’s no coincidence that the action plan came out alongside a strategic dialogue between the Commission and the auto industry. Climate and environmental voices have not received such attention and there are concerns that this puts the bloc’s green agenda into reverse.
“The Green Deal has been in the centre of all legislation,” Jens Gieseke MEP tells The Parliament. “This is a very one sided and, in a way, an ideological approach, and it’s a great harm to the [automotive] industry.”
Green Deal, red ink
The Green Deal set targets for automotive manufacturers on electric vehicle production and emissions, with a phase-out of combustion engines by 2035. Failure to comply with the first round of emissions targets could have resulted in fines for industry offenders as early as this year.
Then, the Commission intervened. The action plan postponed the fines, giving automakers more time to meet requirements. This was a welcome reprieve for a sector struggling against global competition, while simultaneously pushing the EU’s energy and transport transitions further into the future.
Climate researchers say these kinds of delays further minimise the chance of keeping the planet from warming to catastrophic levels. Transport is responsible for nearly 30 per cent of the EU’s total CO2 emissions, of which 72 per cent comes from road transport.
Gieseke, in his third term as MEP, is a stalwart advocate for the EU’s automotive sector and represents Germany’s Lower Saxony region, a key hub of the country’s auto industry and a state that holds an 11.8 per cent ownership stake in Volkswagen Group.
He says it is time to fix what he calls the mistakes made in the previous mandate. In 2024, auto companies cut more than 88,000 jobs as a result of a 6.2 per cent drop in production in the industry. Fewer cars produced means fewer workers needed to build them. Across the EU, factory closures have already occurred in Belgium and Germany, with more planned across the bloc.
These job losses had a major political impact, according to Gieseke, both in the European elections and, more recently, in the German national elections, where the incumbent SPD lost 86 seats. “You see the consequences of this policy and this has, of course, consequences on the elections, because all the people… affected are not happy with the current government,” Gieseke tells The Parliament.
Infrastructure lacking
If EU carmakers are expected to ramp up electric vehicle (EV) production for the EU market, other parts of the ecosystem will need to step up. A 2024 report from ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, found that the Netherlands, France and Germany are home to almost two-thirds of all EU charging points, making the transition to EVs impractical for most of the bloc.
Read the full piece on The Parliament here.
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