On Thursday 18 October, the European Parliament’s environment committee in Brussels voted by a large majority (47 for, 6 against) in favour of ambitious CO2 emission reduction standards from the European fleet of new heavy vehicles.
When voting on the proposal for a European regulation in May this year, they opted for a binding target for 20% emissions reduction by 2025 and for 35% by 2030 (compared with 2019), for the European fleet of heavy vehicles (see EUROPE 12104, 12022).
To the great satisfaction of the rapporteur, Bas Eikhout (Greens/EFA, NL), this outcome goes much further than the tabled proposal which aimed at 15% by 2025 and at least 30% by 2030 as an indicative objective to be reviewed in 2022 (see EUROPE 12086).
The EPP Group was able to rally to the compromise between the S&D, ALDE, GUE/NGL, ELDD and Greens/EFA.
Initially, the EPP and the ECR Group proposed 15% for 2025 and 35% for 2030. The ECR voted against the text.
MEPs also proposed a system of incentives for low or zero emission vehicles, with a benchmark percentage of 5% in 2025 and 20% in 2030 for the minimal mandatory share of such vehicles in the sales from each manufacturer.
In an amendment, they added buses to the list of vehicles concerned.
“Today’s majority is making the big polluters of the road responsible for more climate protection. Truck manufacturers should be rewarded for clean trucks. The European Union must move out of the slow lane to become a pioneer in climate protection in road traffic. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it very clear that we cannot waste any more time on climate protection”, commented Eikhout. The chair of the transport committee, Karima Delli (Greens/EFA) said “this vote must help HGV manufacturers to be encouraged to build truly clean vehicles”.
Christofer Fjellner, the shadow rapporteur of the EPP Group, was equally pleased (up to a point), saying: “Europe is by far the global champion of trucks and buses for the future. (...) We need CO2 legislation that drives innovation further and gets more new low emission trucks out on the roads”. He went on to immediately add, however: “To decarbonise road transport we need a major technology shift. But the truth is that we, as legislators, cannot command when and how this shift will come about”. Hence his hope that the plenary session vote will allow the text to be amended.
There is consternation among European manufacturers of heavy vehicles. The ACEA, which already found the European Commission’s targets over-ambitious, immediately expressed its grave concern regarding the “extremely ambitious” targets, concerning the six-year delay, which is considered too short for technologies required to be available and for objectives fixed to be economically viable.
“These targets would pose major problems as they do not simply take market realities and complexities into account for heavy vehicles or the length of development cycles for heavy vehicles. MEPs must know that heavy vehicles arriving on the market in 2025 are already in the development phase”, said Erik Jonnaert, ACEA Secretary General, in a press release.
The Parliament will take a stance on this issue and is expected to vote on the mandate for beginning trialogue talks during the plenary session of 12-15 November. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)