Episode Details

For more than a century, the car has expanded personal freedom, economic opportunity and independence. Yet across Europe, policymakers increasingly treat driving itself as a problem to be managed away.

In this MCC Brussels Deep Dive, John O’Brien speaks to Brussels lobbyist Conor Allen about Europe’s growing hostility to the car, from traffic policies designed to discourage driving to the regulatory push for electric vehicles.

Allen argues that too much transport policy is now driven by political goals rather than consumer choice. The result, he says, is a system that punishes drivers, sidelines industry, weakens Europe’s carmakers and leaves the continent more dependent on China.

This is not simply a debate about cleaner transport. It is about an EU policy class that increasingly treats the driver as a problem, consumer choice as an obstacle and the car as something to be regulated out of ordinary life. The result is less freedom, weaker industry and a continent making itself poorer in the name of political dogma