Brussels, 17/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - Carlo Fidanza (EPP, Italy), the rapporteur on the strategy for clean fuels proposed by the Commission, presented his draft report to the parliamentary committee on transport (TRAN) on Monday 16 September. He largely supports the Commission's ambition to encourage the market to move on to clean fuels in order to break the Union's energy dependence and reduce the impact that transport has on the environment.
In his draft report, Fidanza shows proof of flexibility regarding the timeline set by the Commission, mainly for national strategic frameworks, and suggests intermediary objectives be introduced in order to verify work achieved by member states once the directive is put into effect. Furthermore, he has not yet modified the country-by-country figures for fuelling stations, as these provisions are giving rise to debate in Council. He calls for there to be flexibility with regard to targets, as long as this does not empty the directive of all substance. In his eyes, the targets should remain binding. He supports the type 2 socket chosen by the Commission for electric cars but would like member states to be able to demand a safety switch. Regarding rapid refuelling, he would prefer technological neutrality. And as for hydrogen, he suggests that the least advanced countries when it comes to development of this technology should be able to benefit from a timeframe running till 2030.
Regarding the funding of refuelling infrastructure for alternative fuels, which causes member states and MEPs great concern, the rapporteur believes that private funding alone will not be sufficient. Public funding, he believes, could be used, for example from the European Investment Bank. He concludes by also calling for the door to be left open to innovation for even more advanced technologies. (MD/transl.jl)