Despite the best efforts of the Austrian Presidency of the Council to try to find a compromise, the draft legislation on future standards of CO2 emissions for new cars and vans is expected to go to ministerial level on Tuesday 9 October at the Environment Council in Luxembourg, a week after the vote at the European Parliament scheduled for Wednesday 3 October, a vote that is also expected to be highly charged.
Delegations and MEPs alike are deeply divided over the level of ambition of the regulation unveiled in November to cut emissions from the European fleet of new private cars and vans and encourage electromobility (see EUROPE 12104).
At COREPER (the Permanent Representatives’ Committee) on Wednesday 26 September, no progress was made on reducing emissions by 35% by 2030 (mid-way between the 30% proposed by the Commission and the 45% desired by the European Parliament's environment committee - see EUROPE 12093). The intermediate objective of 15% in 2025 is reportedly unchanged.
A source said on Friday 28 September that the positions differ widely and it is not certain that the 35% objective will be retained or that a general approach will be reached at the Environment Council. The Austrian Presidency will do all it can to achieve this, but there is no certainty, although its desire is to conclude as quickly as possible.
In the absence of a general approach, the following Environment Council is on 20 December, after the COP24 in Katowice (3-14 December), which would lead to panic, said a diplomatic source. However, in terms of legality, nothing presents a general approach beings reached at COREPER without waiting for a ministerial meeting. As a sign of the Austrian Presidency’s desire to make progress and rapidly conclude the dossier, an initial trilogue meeting is already programmes for 10 October.
Reduction objectives. At the one extreme are the more ambitious countries (Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Belgium) who want 40% or more in order to respect the Paris Climate Agreement. At the other extreme are Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Romania, which say 30% is the maximum. These countries fear the social impact of over-ambitious targets on their car industry and also for consumers given the very high cost of electric vehicles.
Germany – the heavyweight in this dossier – will play a decisive role. It has not yet decided on its position, although chancellor Angela Merkel made it public on 26 September that she will oppose the idea of going beyond 30% in order to protect industry competitiveness, to the dismay of the Greens/EFA at the European Parliament.
The Commission’s representative said that legislation couldn’t be the only way of achieving the Paris climate objectives, and 30% was the cheapest objective to reach. He urged the more ambitious countries to take measures without restricting the others, the important thing being having everyone on board.
Incentives for clean vehicles. The idea mooted by the Austrian Presidency of adding a penalty to the no claims system to encourage the sale of zero or low-emission vehicles is not favoured by some delegations and will therefore require further discussion.
Measuring emissions. The need to prevent the risk of voluntary inflation of WLTP values by ensuring the starting values are well defined, as desired by the Commission, is a step in the right direction to prevent fraud, say the delegations.
One point will be addressed informally at the Environment Council upon request of bulgier, Poland and Slovakia, in terms of the measures to be taken to tackle pollution generated by the import of polluting second-hand cars from high-income countries to the poorer countries of Europe.
At the Parliament, the EPP and CRE oppose all the other groups. At the European Parliament, the EPP and CRE political groups oppose objectives any more ambitious than those suggested by the European Commission, unlike all the other groups, which are prepared to support the position voted through by the environment committee. The political groups’ amendments were not yet known when we went to press on Friday. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)