European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA) is calling on the European Union to implement targeted measures to preserve production capacity, address structural cost disadvantages, and support investment in domestic manufacturing.
Without decisive action, thousands of jobs will be lost, and European companies will face the relocation of production outside the region, Kallanish learns from the association.
According to CLEPA, for decades, the European automotive supply industry has sustained a robust trade surplus, being an undisputed engine of global value creation, but today the engine is stalling.
“The most striking shift is in production value after China has expanded its capacity at such a pace that it now produces roughly twice as much in value-added terms as the EU. This surge, alongside rising imports from lower-cost hubs is actively cutting the trade surplus that once underpinned Europe’s industrial strength. Simultaneously, exports to key, traditional markets like the United Kingdom and the United States have begun to decline,” it adds.
Taken together, these trends point to a rapid erosion of Europe’s role as a global powerhouse in traditional automotive components, the suppliers say.
“China’s automotive supply industry is growing faster than ever, increasingly challenging Europe’s suppliers,” says CLEPA’s general secretary Benjamin Krieger.
“If Europe wants to remain a major manufacturing hub, we need policies that strengthen our competitiveness and ensure that suppliers can compete on a true level playing field. Balancing the protection of European industrial strengths with the promotion of employment and investment must be the core goal of the Industrial Accelerator Act,” he adds.
The association note that imports from China continue to dominate the EU market for traditional automotive components, growing in 2025 by 12% year-on-year. Chinese imports now exceed €8 billion ($9.2 billion), representing around 30% of total EU imports in this category.
At the same time, imports from Turkey have doubled over the past five years, now reaching approximately €5 billion. Imports from the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea remain broadly similar in scale, each supplying around €2.5 billion worth of components to the EU market in 2025.
