The Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU received, on Wednesday 6 February, a mandate to negotiate, on 12 February, with the European Parliament, on the proposal for a regulation aimed at establishing, for the first time, performance standards for the reduction of CO2 emissions from the European fleet of heavy commercial vehicles and new buses.
The ambassadors of the 28 EU Member States (Coreper) gave him this mandate for this third - and possibly the last - trilogue negotiation meeting (see EUROPE 12178).
On emission reduction targets and incentives for the sale of low-emission or zero-emission vehicles - the two policy issues - the mandate does not deviate from the general approach adopted by the Council. There is no margin for flexibility. "Most countries said they did not have any and that they wanted to stick to the position they had formulated", a diplomatic source said.
The Council wants an average reduction of 15% in 2025 compared to 2019 and 30% in 2030 (compared to 20% in 2025 and 35% in 2030 for the European Parliament).
For incentives, the Council continues to favour a system of supercredits subject to predefined ceilings to avoid weakening environmental targets, by excluding buses and coaches from the system. But for the European Parliament, which is very critical of supercredits, it is very important to provide for a sales benchmark of these vehicles.
On the other hand, progress has been made on less sensitive issues such as: - the fair transition (the text would largely reflect what is provided for in the CO2 Vehicle Regulation); - the scope (the Parliament wanted to see the definition of professional trucks clarified; garbage trucks and construction site trucks should be well covered); - the monitoring and reporting period for emissions: this would start in July 2019, six months later than what the Parliament proposed; - the provisions on product life cycle analysis: they would be aligned with those for cars.
On the eve of Coreper, ACEA had once again expressed its concern that reduction targets and incentives might be too ambitious to be realistic. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)