On Wednesday 26 November, Estonia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia signed a declaration calling for a relaxation of the requirements of the ‘AFIR’ regulation on the deployment of alternative fuel infrastructure for heavy-duty vehicles. This statement will be communicated to the other Member States at the ‘Transport’ Council on Thursday 4 December.
It points out that “while the transition to zero-emission technologies in the transport sector remains a key EU objective, the ambitious AFIR targets were adopted under a different geopolitical and economic context [...] The signatories of the declaration highlight the need to acknowledge differing geographical, economic and political circumstances faced by the Member States”. In their view, these differences lead to difficulties such as “insufficient grid capacity, budgetary constraints, and low market demand for HDV chargers, which make full implementation of the current targets by 2030 highly challenging”.
The greatest need for flexibility is around: - distance between chargers; - the output power of individual charging stations; - requirements for roads with an annual average daily traffic volume of less than 2,000 heavy-duty vehicles.
The Member States would also like to see the possibility of dual use of HDV chargers for light vehicles, to ensure that infrastructure does not remain unused in the event of a lack of demand from HDVs.
They argue that “failing to do so could lead to costly investments that may not be utilised sufficiently to justify the expenditure. This situation poses a significant challenge, particularly given public scrutiny regarding budget implications and national defence requiring every available investment to ensure the security of the citizens and stability of the markets in the current political context.”
This declaration is at odds with the declaration made by the transport and infrastructure ministers of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland and Sweden, in which these countries committed to advancing the transition to zero-emission road freight along the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) in September (see EUROPE 13710/8).
Link to the statement: https://aeur.eu/f/jpc (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)