Voters in most EU countries prefer local over European procurement, poll finds

When European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen's team drafted the Industrial Accelerator Act, the logic seemed straightforward enough: use public procurement to give European clean-tech manufacturers an edge over Chinese competitors. Public contracts account for roughly 17 percent of the EU's economic output, so even a modest tilt in favour of domestic suppliers could reshape markets. The problem is that voters across the continent do not see it the way Brussels does.

A survey of 26,283 adults across 24 EU member states and the United Kingdom, conducted by Public First in May and June and shared with the press, found that in 23 of the 25 countries polled, respondents preferred procurement rules that advantaged products made in their own country over those made elsewhere in Europe. Average support for a domestic preference sat slightly above 50 percent. Support for a European preference fell just short of that mark.

National before European

Luke Shore, managing director at the Project Tempo think tank, which analysed the findings from the EuroPulse survey, put it plainly: "Across most of Europe, the sentiment is nationalistic before it is European, whatever the size of the country's industrial base." The pattern held regardless of whether a country had a large manufacturing sector capable of supplying public contracts or a small economy that depends heavily on imports from its neighbours.

The disparities between member states are wide. Portugal and Spain registered the strongest support for both national and European procurement preferences, with net support exceeding 50 percent for domestic origin and just under 50 percent for the broader European definition. At the other end, Latvia and Estonia showed net support below 10 percent for "Buy European" and only in the teens for "Buy Domestic." Germany, the EU's largest economy and the country most often associated with the drive for European strategic autonomy, sits in an awkward middle: net support for either domestic or European preference was relatively weak, both below 20 percent. Germans, Shore noted, have "similar attitudes" whether the preference is national or European, which suggests not enthusiasm for either but indifference to both.

The price question that undermines protectionism

The survey also tested what happens when voters are told that protecting European industry could cost them personally. More than half of respondents said they wanted Europe to produce its own clean technology, even if that slowed the green transition. But support for trade protections fell sharply when price consequences were introduced. Asked about tariffs on Chinese technology, only 35 percent backed the idea once they were told it could push up prices.

This is the tension at the heart of the Commission's industrial strategy. The Industrial Accelerator Act is designed to build European supply chains in clean tech, semiconductors and critical raw materials, reducing dependence on China. But the mechanism the Commission has chosen, preferential treatment in public procurement, works only if governments are willing to pay more or accept longer delivery times for European-made goods. Voters, it turns out, like the idea of European self-reliance until they see the bill.

Shore described support for energy and industrial policies as "cost-contingent." The finding will not surprise anyone who has watched European elections over the past three years, in which living costs have consistently outranked strategic autonomy as a voter concern, but it does complicate the political calculus for governments asked to sign off on the IAA.

What the Industrial Accelerator Act proposes

The Industrial Accelerator Act, which the Commission wants adopted by the end of 2026, is the latest in a series of legislative packages aimed at shoring up Europe's industrial base. Its predecessor, the Net Zero Industry Act, set targets for domestic manufacturing of clean technologies but stopped short of mandating procurement preferences. The IAA goes further by proposing that public contracts include a "European preference" clause, giving EU-made products an advantage in bidding processes.

Public procurement in the EU is governed by rules designed to ensure fair competition across the single market. The official EU procurement directives currently prohibit member states from favouring national suppliers over those from other member states, a principle that underpins the single market. The Commission's proposal would create a limited exception for clean-tech products, but the scope of that exception, how limited it would actually be, is the subject of intense negotiation.

EU governments have already pushed back on the Commission's original draft. The Council has proposed recasting the European preference so that it applies to products rather than countries, a change that would make it easier for a German company manufacturing in Poland, for example, to qualify. The European Parliament has yet to settle on a common position, and the Parliament's committees are divided between those who want a strong preference mechanism and those who worry about retaliation from trading partners.

Why southern Europe leans in and the Baltics lean out

The country-level variation in the poll matters because the IAA requires broad support from member states to pass. The strong backing in Portugal and Spain for both domestic and European procurement preferences likely reflects a combination of industrial ambition and recent experience with energy dependency. Both countries saw electricity prices spike during the energy crisis of 2021-22 and have since invested heavily in renewable generation. The public may connect domestic manufacturing of clean tech with energy security in a way that voters in the Baltic states, where the industrial base is smaller and cross-border supply chains with Nordic neighbours are well established, do not.

Germany's lukewarm support for either preference is harder to read. The country has a large industrial sector that would benefit from European procurement rules, but German voters and businesses have historically been sceptical of anything that looks like a challenge to the single market's open competition principles. German industry also depends on export markets, including China, and may calculate that protectionist procurement rules invite retaliation.

The Commission's September deadline

The Commission is due to present its Public Procurement Act in early September, a separate but related piece of legislation that will set out the detailed rules for how the European preference would work in practice. The timing is deliberate: the Commission wants both files moving through the legislative pipeline before the end of the year, its self-imposed deadline for finalising the IAA.

But the polling data suggests the Commission faces two political hurdles that no amount of institutional negotiation can easily clear. The first is that voters in most member states prefer their own country's products to those made elsewhere in Europe, which means governments may be reluctant to champion a "Buy European" message at home. The second is that support for protectionist industrial policy collapses as soon as prices rise, which means the economic case for the IAA needs to demonstrate that European preference rules will not increase procurement costs.

Neither hurdle is small. Public procurement rules that favour domestic suppliers over the cheapest bidder almost always increase costs in the short term; the argument is that the long-term benefit of retaining industrial capacity justifies the premium. That argument works in briefing papers. It is harder to sustain in a cost-of-living crisis, when voters are watching their electricity bills and grocery receipts more closely than they are watching China's export figures.

A single market built on open competition

There is also a deeper institutional problem. The single market exists precisely to prevent member states from favouring their own industries in public contracts. The principle of non-discrimination, enshrined in the EU treaties and reinforced by decades of case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union, is one of the foundations of European economic integration. Carving out an exception for clean tech is not just a technical adjustment; it is a conceptual shift that some member states fear could be expanded to other sectors, or could invite reciprocal barriers from trading partners.

The Commission has tried to frame the IAA as a targeted response to China's dominance in solar panels, batteries and other clean technologies, rather than a general retreat from open procurement. But the polling suggests that voters are not making a distinction between targeted industrial policy and general protectionism. When asked about tariffs on Chinese tech, they supported the idea until they learned it could raise prices. When asked about procurement preferences, they chose their own country over Europe. The Commission's carefully calibrated message, that European preference is not protectionism but strategic investment, has not yet landed.