Comment by chihuahua
Especially in Germany, which has several major manufacturers (Daimler-Benz, VW, BMW) that are important to the economy. Additionally, VW is part owned by the government of one of the states, which is why they are frequently favored by the government. Despite various scandals at VW, there are rarely any serious consequences for the company, because the government always finds a way to make trouble go away.
And Germany is fairly influential in the EU so they probably extend the protection of these companies to the EU level.
EU politics are basically French, German politics vs smaller countries now, I think. The triangle balance of France, Germany, UK has been replaced by a more centralised but also more diffuse model, although Poland seems to be becoming more important.