At the meeting of the Competitiveness Council in Brussels on Monday 29 September, European industry ministers called on the European Commission to speed up the introduction of measures to support the automotive sector.
“There is an urgent need to act, to move forward in the face of the crisis, because the automotive sector is going through a real crisis and [...] we are moving too slowly”, said the French minister, Marc Ferracci. “The announcements of the 12 September are in fact very similar to those in the March automotive plan, and this slow pace is tending to undermine our credibility in the eyes of the public and our industries”.
The European Commissioner for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné – who came to present the results of the third strategic dialogue with representatives of the automotive sector (see EUROPE 13708/2) – adopted a reassuring tone. “I’ve taken note of both the ambitions and the speed. What you can be sure of, is that the European Commission is mobilised to move more quickly”, he stressed. He believes that a series of measures will be presented before the end of 2025: - a review of vehicle CO2 emission standards; - a legislative proposal on decarbonising company fleets; - an initiative on small, affordable electric vehicles; - the ‘battery booster’ programme, which aims to encourage battery production (see EUROPE 13706/6).
Several ministers, however, have referred to the need to follow an approach that is based on technological neutrality. The Austrian, Polish, Czech and Slovakian ministers went even further, calling for a reversal of the 2035 target to ban the production of combustion engine vehicles. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)