Abstract: Voters in Europe’s car manufacturing regions are turning their backs on mainstream political parties, confirming the suspicion that green policies and anti-industrial rhetoric are pushing voters to the political margins. However, local data suggests a more complex relationship between occupation, national industry, and political preferences.
According to the EU, 13.8 million people work for the sector at large in the bloc, and they represent 8.5 per cent of the jobs in manufacturing. This army of European blue-collar workers shares a trait: they vote. Electoral studies about European and national elections already show how the working class shifted away from traditional social-democratic parties to embrace more right-wing alternatives, yet the politicisation of the auto industry is not yet part of the debate.
Right-wing leaders supported by auto workers
The new European Commission has a very composite membership, with commissioners from the S&D sharing the College with ECR colleagues. This compounds an already ideologically complex landscape in the European Union. After the last European elections, Europe saw a new legislative election in France (the second car manufacturer in Europe) that yielded a new Prime Minister, the Republican Michel Barnier, giving EPP its 14th PM in the bloc.
This leaves the far-right with only three heads of government in Europe, with Renew Europe and S&D with four each. The new Patriots group has two (Viktor Orbàn for Hungary and, even if indirectly, Dick Schoof in the Netherlands), while only one belongs to a party which is not inscribed, Slovak PM Robert Fico. The following chart shows how this impacts the car industry.
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