With 514 votes in favour, 52 against and 74 abstentions, the plenary session of the European Parliament on Tuesday 11 July approved the agreement with the Council of the European Union on the ‘AFIR’ regulation on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (see EUROPE 13187/35).
The agreement, reached in March (see EUROPE 13151/4), sets mandatory minimum national targets for the deployment of this infrastructure and asks EU countries to present their plans on how to achieve them.
“One third of greenhouse gas emissions come from transport”, said the text’s rapporteur, Petar Vitanov (S&D, Bulgarian), during the plenary debate on Monday 10 July.
“We have improved the text with regard to the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) and figures for rechargeable vehicles”, he said. “The agreement we have reached is balanced and will enable us to have a cleaner future”, he added.
“The AFIR regulation will ensure a market-driven roll-out of sufficient and user-friendly alternative fuels infrastructure everywhere in the EU”, welcomed the European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean.
Charging points for electric vehicles will be installed every 60 kilometres along the central TEN-T by 2025, and at least every 120 kilometres for heavy goods vehicles by 2028. Hydrogen refuelling stations will also be installed by 2028, at least every 200 kilometres.
“We would have appreciated a higher target for heavy duty vehicle recharging and hydrogen fuels infrastructure”, she added.
On Friday 2 June, the European Transport Ministers adopted a common position on each of the three legislative proposals in the ‘Fit for 55’ package relating to the transport sector: ‘AFIR’, ‘FuelEU Maritime’ (see other news) and ‘ReFuelEU Aviation’.
The text can be implemented as soon as it is published in the Official Journal of the EU.
To read the text, go to https://aeur.eu/f/809 (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)