Central and Eastern Europe’s auto industry faces a potentially sharp hit from fresh EU budget arithmetic, industry leaders warned at a Brussels roundtable on 4–5 November. The Irish presidency’s negotiating text for the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) trims the Commission’s plan by roughly 8% — about €141 billion — and cuts competitiveness‑focused programmes by around 13%, measures that could curb financing for industrial modernisation in CEE.
Roundtable: CEE warns of a 'Detroit moment'
The meeting, convened by Visegrad Insight and held in Brussels on 4 November, gathered MEPs, Commission officials and industry representatives including Janusz Lewandowski (MEP), György Bacsa of MOL Group and Nathalie Berger of DG GROW. Participants argued that while cohesion funding remains politically protected, centrally managed competitiveness instruments — designed to back research, scale‑up and industrial deployment — would be cut more deeply and thereby disadvantage firms in Poland, Romania and other CEE states.
‘We can end up like Michigan in the United States,’ MOL Group strategic chief György Bacsa warned, urging negotiators not to allow CEE’s industrial belt to become stranded in low‑value production. Janusz Lewandowski stressed that cohesion money delivers predictable infrastructure investment but that excellence‑based programmes currently return “almost nothing” to many Eastern member states.
Where the cuts hit
The Irish text, circulated on 10 October, sets total commitments at roughly €1.62 trillion in 2025 prices (about €1.83 trillion in current prices) — an 8% reduction on the Commission’s July 2025 proposal, equivalent to a €141 billion cut. Under that box, competitiveness, prosperity and security headings fall to about €456 billion (around a 13% reduction), while cohesion and agriculture see smaller reductions of roughly 3%.
Visegrad Insight’s summary of the Brussels discussion highlighted a specific risk for the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF): because the ECF is meant to allocate finance on excellence and bankability rather than geography, CEE countries with shallower capital markets and smaller project pipelines may struggle to convert the new instrument into locally deployable factory upgrades, battery projects or EV supply‑chain investments. The ECF’s InvestEU window was noted as an €11 billion horizontal envelope intended to make projects bankable — but participants warned that demand‑driven, excellence‑weighted allocation could leave structural gaps for CEE.
What this means for the market
Automakers and suppliers across Central and Eastern Europe are already navigating high energy costs, supplier restructuring and a shift toward EV value chains. Roundtable speakers said cuts to competitiveness programmes would reduce grant and advisory support that helps turn R&D into factory projects — slowing localisation of battery, power‑electronics and advanced supplier investments that CEE needs to move up the value chain. That would leave some plants exposed to relocation risk or to competing for lower‑margin assembly work.
Policy choices now being negotiated in Luxembourg and at leaders’ meetings before year‑end will therefore matter for deal pipelines, bankable project volumes and where OEMs choose to site next‑generation capacity. The roundtable called for targeted SME windows, stronger advisory hubs and national promotional bank capacity to turn competitiveness cash into shovel‑ready industrial projects for the region.
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Sources: Visegrad Insight, Brussels Signal
