Grim news continues to blow from the heart of the Blue Continent, where the European textile and apparel industry is reportedly suffering a deeply concerning erosion of competitiveness. Week after week, textile factories across European Union member states are shutting down their operations, triggering a domino effect of job losses, devastated local communities, and the irreversible disappearance of strategic manufacturing capabilities. According to the latest economic update released by the European Apparel and Textile Confederation (EURATEX), the sector has recorded negative results for the third consecutive year (2023–2025) across all key performance indicators—production volume, turnover, and employment.

The collapse of Europe's textile resilience is driven by a toxic combination of external pressures and unbearable internal burdens. European manufacturers are forced to operate amidst structurally high energy costs post-geopolitical crisis, weak domestic consumer demand, and mounting import pressures from cheap Asian products. This dire situation is further exacerbated by the aggressive penetration of transnational e-commerce platforms that often exploit regulatory loopholes, while local European producers are heavily weighed down by increasingly complex and bureaucratic green and circular economy regulations.

Responding to this critical phase, EURATEX President Mario Jorge Machado issued a stern warning to the European Commission and Member States to take concrete, immediate action before the end of 2026. According to Machado, if policymakers in Brussels fail to act decisively, Europe's dependency on foreign supply chains will swell, which ironically runs counter to the EU's commitment to reducing the global carbon footprint. "If Europe is serious about maintaining its manufacturing base, it must act faster and more decisively. Every week, textile companies are closing. Production moves elsewhere, dependency increases, and the carbon footprint grows," Machado emphasized in his official statement.

Looking at the decline of both upstream and downstream sectors in Europe, global textile industry observers note that the crisis unfolding in the EU should serve as a vital lesson for manufacturing nations in other regions, including Indonesia. The striking similarities in challenges—such as bureaucratic red tape, energy cost disparities, and a flood of illegal imports in domestic markets—demonstrate that labor-intensive sectors require precise protection and incentives to survive. Textiles are not merely about fashion or footwear defining cultural craftsmanship; they form a strategic industrial ecosystem supplying critical value chains ranging from healthcare and defense to mobility and construction. This is an essential pillar that Europe, and the world, simply cannot afford to lose in the vortex of unfair global competition.