On Thursday 15 January, the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) held talks with Kerstin Jorna, the European Commission’s Director-General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, on the ‘automotive package’. Although she welcomed the principle of the package, presented in mid-December (see EUROPE 13774/13), she was rather sceptical about the details.
As suggested by Christian Ehler (EPP, German) and Matthias Ecke (S&D, German), Mrs Jorna acknowledged that there was a “market failure”, particularly in the battery sector. “If we’re not able to have a diversified battery value chain, then at a certain stage, one could imagine a time sooner or later when we will no longer have access to batteries”, she warned. “(...) We have to ramp it up. From an investor’s perspective, this is important, because collateral does not always support the investment needs for the ramp-up”.
For Daniel Obajtek (ECR, Polish), there is no mechanism to convince Europeans to buy electric vehicles. “We can see what the situation is for the networks. We can see what’s happening with the logistics. We’re moving at a snail’s pace on projects funded by the European Union, while we’re losing all the companies and they’re all moving elsewhere. There has been a 13% increase in the number of Chinese vehicles. European industry is not interested in investing”, he lamented.
Faced with these concerns, the Commission representative recalled the figures: the EU currently produces 11.5 million cars, 10.6 million of which are sold on EU territory. 70% of vehicles sold in Europe are European. The rest is exported. To stimulate European production, Mrs Jorna mentioned the need to standardise the size of batteries to facilitate recycling. “So competition would be based on content and not on the shape of the battery”, she added.
On the demand side, she mentioned the part of the package aimed at greening corporate fleets by setting them binding targets at Member State level. Finally, on the subject of Chinese competition, she revealed that the Commission is considering trade measures, and pointed out that customs duties already exist.
Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, French) regretted the postponement of the ‘industrial accelerator’ (see EUROPE 13783/10) “at a time when ‘Made in Europe’ is a key factor in the survival and competitiveness of our industry”.
Mrs Jorna announced that a call for tenders would be issued at the end of January/beginning of February. “The Innovation Fund will be put to work. We hope that this tendering process will come to a rapid conclusion and that those who win the contracts will receive funding as quickly as possible, because the faster the better”, she stressed. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)