Poland leads six-country push for an EU rescue plan for home appliance manufacturing

Poland is pushing the European Commission to draw up a dedicated support plan for the European Union's household appliance industry, arguing at a meeting of EU competitiveness ministers in Brussels that washing machines, refrigerators and dishwashers are part of Europe's industrial base and not merely goods on a shop shelf. The initiative came from Italy and is backed by Poland, France, Germany, Spain and Slovakia, RMF FM reported.

Poland accounts for more than 40% of EU output

Poland is the largest producer of large domestic appliances in the European Union, responsible for more than 40 percent of European production, according to RMF FM. In several individual categories — washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwashers among them — the Polish share reaches 60 percent.

That manufacturing base is contracting. Wojciech Konecki, president of APPLiA Polska, the association representing appliance makers, told RMF FM that five appliance factories were shut down in Poland last year alone and that further plants are at risk. The damage extends past the assembly lines themselves, he said, because every large plant is surrounded by a network of subsuppliers. “We are dying quietly,” Konecki said.

Manufacturers point to four pressures: rising competition from China, high energy costs, component prices, and the cost of complying with EU regulation. The decline is not confined to Poland — appliance production is being lost across the bloc.

One million jobs and €80 billion a year

According to a document prepared by France, Germany, Italy and Poland and seen by RMF FM, the European appliance sector supports around one million jobs and contributes roughly €80 billion a year to the European economy.

Its market position has eroded steadily. Over the past ten years the share of Asian-made equipment on the European market rose from about 15 percent to 28 percent, while the share of European production fell from about 81 percent to 71 percent.

What the six capitals want from Brussels

Poland, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Slovakia are asking the Commission to prepare a dedicated European Plan for the Household Appliance Sector. Their requests include:

• better functioning of the single market;
• more effective control of imports and enforcement of EU rules;
• removal of unnecessary administrative burdens;
• improved access to European financing;
• support for investment, production and innovation, development of recycling, and greater transparency on product origin.

CBAM extension is the central demand

The industry's priority is widening the scope of CBAM, the EU levy that accounts for CO₂ emissions embedded in products imported from outside the bloc. Producers want it applied to additional finished appliances brought in from countries such as China — dishwashers, ovens, extractor hoods, cookers and hobs.

APPLiA argues those categories were left out of the current rules even though they account for about half of Poland's large appliance production. Warsaw intends to build a coalition on the issue with Germany, Italy and other member states with a substantial appliance manufacturing base.

Beyond the factory gate

In their joint document the governments stress that appliances sit inside a much larger industrial chain covering steel, plastics, electronics, logistics, repair services and recycling. Losing a plant therefore hits subsuppliers, service companies and the downstream links of that chain, not only the workforce at the site.

The group also frames the issue as economic security. Appliances are needed to store food and medicines, and if Europe loses its own capacity it becomes more dependent on Asian supplies of both finished machines and spare parts. Konecki said that if a trade war, a transport crisis or a break in supply chains halted deliveries of parts to European factories, “the problem would no longer be just the price of a fridge. The problem could be its availability, and therefore a question of food security, for example.”