Brussels is experiencing a crisis of support that would have seemed unthinkable until recently. The vote in the European Parliament—which saw 370 votes against and 264 in favor of a key Green Deal proposal—has fractured the political alliance that had supported the von der Leyen Commission since 2019. It is a sign of a deep rift, not only political but also cultural, that runs through the entire European project.
For Cavaliere Domenico De Rosa, an entrepreneur and a critical voice in the business world, that vote represents the end of an illusion. For years, Brussels has built an ideological framework that has mistaken sustainability for a dogma, forgetting that sustainability must go hand in hand with competitiveness, not against it. The vote in Strasbourg has revealed a truth that entrepreneurs have known for some time: the Green Deal, as it was conceived, is not sustainable for either European industry or European households.
It wasn’t just the conservative groups that rejected the proposal. A significant portion of the European People’s Party, along with the Conservatives and Reformists, Identity and Democracy, and some MEPs from Renew Europe, chose to put an end to a regulatory framework that over the years had turned into a cage. The measure up for a vote, related to centralized forest monitoring, was merely a technical detail, yet symbolically decisive: the Commission sought to impose unified oversight on all member states, once again eroding national sovereignty on environmental matters. That is where the pillar of the so-called “Ursula majority” crumbled.
De Rosa speaks of an “ideological drift.” Everyone wants a more sustainable Europe, but the problem lies in the method: imposing rules disconnected from industrial reality is, in his view, political and economic suicide. The Green Deal has become a machine of constraints and taxes. Emissions, internal-combustion cars, corporate fleets, agricultural production, even forests: every sector has been shackled by obligations and restrictions that have sent energy costs skyrocketing, eroded competitiveness, and fragmented Europe’s productive fabric.
The rift no longer concerns only the political parties, but the member states themselves. On one side are Italy and Germany, which are defending their manufacturing sectors and calling for pragmatism. On the other are France and Spain, which continue to support the Commission’s line for the sake of domestic political expediency. But the real divide, De Rosa emphasizes, is between those who make their living from real industry and those who make their living from regulations. Productive Europe—the Europe that generates jobs and value—has had enough of decisions made in the corridors of Brussels by people who have never run a business, never signed a paycheck, and don’t know what it means to maintain a positive operating margin in times of inflation and high energy costs.
The green transition, explains De Rosa, is inevitable. But the way it is implemented could determine the fate of an entire continent. In the United States, the transition was market-driven and supported by incentives. In China, it was planned to strengthen industrial supremacy. In Europe, however, it has been imposed as a moral penance. This vision has turned sustainability into an act of faith rather than an economic strategy.
The result is plain for all to see: closed factories, relocations, industrial unemployment, and a loss of competitiveness. What was supposed to be the path toward a greener future has turned into a course of collective self-destruction. Europe, De Rosa concludes, must return to pragmatism; it must listen to those who produce and those who work. Only then can sustainability once again become a driver of progress, rather than an ideological condemnation.