Brussels, 05/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - It's in the bag. The environment committee of the European Parliament chaired by Matthias Groote (S&D, Germany) formally approved, on Tuesday 5 November, in Brussels, the political agreement reached in trialogue on 26 June relating to the draft regulation setting out the arrangements for application, by 2020, of the limits currently imposed on CO2 emissions from light commercial vehicles newly registered in the EU.
In so doing, MEPs confirmed that the average target for emissions from the European fleet of light commercial vehicles should be reduced from the current 203 grams/km to 175 grams/km after 2017 and to 147 grams/km by 2020. The EU28 ambassadors, meeting in Coreper, had done the same on 7 October. The text approved recognises that things should improve by 2025 but does not set a goal beyond 2020.
“I welcome the confirmation of the 147 g target for 2020, as defined two years ago. (…) We did not introduce a post-2020 target. (…) The Commission is asked to provide a new target after conducting a proper impact assessment”, said the rapporteur, Holger Krahmer (ALDE, Germany).
The text will now be put to the Parliament's final vote of approval at the plenary session from 14 to 17 January 2014, which will open the way to a first reading agreement on decisive legislation for combating climate change. Given the difficulties that Germany has with the complementary draft regulation on the reduction of CO2 emissions from passenger cars, the Lithuanian Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers has deliberately decided to decouple the two files.
In order to please Germany, the Environment Council agreed, on 14 October, to allow marginal renegotiation, with the Parliament, of the agreement reached in trialogue on the target of 95 g/km for the fleet of newly registered cars by 2020. (AN/transl.jl)