Brussels, 30/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - Its general election barely over, on Friday 27 September Germany tried a new offensive in the hope of getting its European partners to agree to a delay in applying the political agreement reached in trialogue in June on reducing CO2 emissions from private cars. On the sidelines of the Competitiveness Council, the German delegation circulated a document calling to defer by four years the average objective of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre, agreed by the European institutions for the fleet of cars newly registered in the EU by 2020.
This latest German attempt seeks to raise the standard to 104 g/km by 2020, increasing the fuel bill for drivers of new cars by €138 per year since cars would be less economical, says the environmental NGO Transport & Environment (T&E).
Germany wants the 95 g/km objective to apply to only 80% of the European fleet of new cars in 2020 and to increase by 5% per year until 2024. The proposal was made even though the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council intends to convene a meeting of the member states' ambassadors this week to conduct the vote confirming the political agreement already postponed by the German delegation.
“On the day that the IPCC (Ed: Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change) says that man-made climate change is unequivocal, Germany plays hardball to give its luxury carmakers four more years to sell even more gas-guzzlers”, railed Greg Archer, T&E clean vehicles manager. He went on: “EU countries must stand up to Germany and vote for more efficient cars”. According to the latest T&E annual report, four manufacturers have already reached the target of 130 grams of CO2 per kilometre set under current legislation for 2015, and most are well on the way to achieving the target of 95 g/km by 2020.
It was Germany which, in June, postponed the Coreper vote to confirm the interinstitutional agreement on the draft complementary regulation setting out arrangements for applying current CO2 emissions limits for vans newly registered in the EU by 2020. The political agreement confirmed the objective of 147 g/km by 2020 (see EUROPE 10926 and 10877). (AN/transl.fl)