The new Industrial Accelerator Act, nicknamed the Made in Europe Act, introduces binding European supply requirements for public contracts and aims to increase manufacturing’s share of the European Union’s GDP to 20% by 2035.
Not long ago, this project would have sounded defensive, even dated, the sort of slogan policymakers used when they had run out of smart ideas. Today, it responds to growing anxiety about China’s rise, American antagonism, and Europe’s fears about its own competitiveness.
“European preference” provokes fierce debate. France calls for more Made in Europe. The Nordics and Germany call for less, preferring the phrase “Made with Europe.” Trading partners are concerned that they will be shut out of the European market. The 27 different EU members have different capabilities — small states fear their larger neighbors are best placed to benefit at their expense.
These differences generated numerous delays in launching the proposal. The final draft watered down the most radical ideas, which would have restricted foreign investments and enforced strict European preference requirements. In the end, only a handful of sectors remain in scope, including the auto industry and green technologies confronted with subsidized Chinese competition, such as solar panels, batteriesand wind turbines.
Green tech is at the origin of the Made in Europe project. The proposal was initially designed to accelerate the shift to clean industry. Its original title was the Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator Act. Decarbonization was then dropped from the title. What started as a tool for speeding the clean transition is now framed as an instrument of saving European industry.
The Commission proposal itself makes the ambition explicit. It aims to reverse the long decline in Europe’s industrial weight. The 20% manufacturing target is striking not only because of its scale, but because it signals a political return to production as an end in itself.
Supporters will argue, with reason, that this reflects the world as it is rather than the world Europe once imagined. China has taken control of key manufacturing businesses, including electric cars and solar panels. The US dominates digital, including cloud computing, and has imposed painful tariffs on European imports. Production capacity is no longer just an economic variable. It is a security variable.
But the Act opens up a much more difficult question than its advocates sometimes admit. Once public procurement and subsidies begin to privilege local content, Europe is no longer merely correcting market failures. It is deciding which dependencies are intolerable, which sectors count as strategic, and how much inefficiency it is willing to absorb in exchange for resilience.
That is a profound political choice, and it invites retaliation. China expressed grave concern over the Made in Europe proposal, calling it protectionist and warning that it could undermine trade rules, fair competition, and supply chain stability. The US is also alarmed: both the Departments of State and War rejected any moves that “would limit US industry’s ability to support or otherwise participate in EU member state national defense procurements.”
Internal European critics fear the initiative risks protecting uncompetitive companies without unlocking the continent’s industrial potential. Instead of imposing Made in Europe quotas, they say the EU should focus on lowering energy costs, shortening project timelines, de-risking capital expenditure, and expanding grid and logistics capacity. The EU acknowledges it has a competitiveness problem. What remains uncertain is whether it can translate this realization into effective policy.
Expect the debate to continue over the next year and beyond as the Made in Europe proposal makes its way through the European Parliament and Council.
Maciej Bukowski is a fellow with the Tech Policy Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He is a climate diplomacy and energy security expert, and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Political Science and International Relations at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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