Europe has decided not to decide on the ban on the sale of cars with internal combustion engines from 2035: even more stringent Euro 7 standards could be added to the institutional paralysis
March 04
Even in a whodunit you need technical tools to figure out who the murderer may have been. One could skip to the last page, but in this case it hasn’t even been officially written yet. “The Permanent Representatives Committee will return to the matter in due course” – the spokesman of the Swedish presidency of the EU Council, Daniel Holmberg, communicated to the press on 3 March. Basically, there is no agreement and it is not known for how long. The result was precisely this: the decision of the Committee of Permanent Representatives to the European Union to postpone to a later date the vote on the ban on the sale of cars with combustion engines in the 27 EU countries starting from 1 January 2035. Changes in strategy or paralysis have an inevitable social impact on the automotive, component and allied industries, or more than 13 million jobs nationwide in total. Waiting has very high risks.
the transparent file
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As is known, the Permanent Representatives Committee is the body that coordinates and prepares the work of all Council meetings. From the one scheduled for next March 7, the topic has been cut out. It was an appointment considered absolutely festive and formal, an almost jovial moment in which the members of the European Council should have shaken hands in favor of the camera after the initialling of the Community regulation produced with the “codecision” procedure, the most solemn in Union, which calls into question all the Community institutions to the highest degree of participation in the formation of the text. The rule which provides for the obligation for new cars and new light commercial vehicles not to produce any CO2 emissions from 2035, contained in the “Fit for 55” plan, was proposed by the Commission on 14 July 2021, obtaining the approval on 28 October consent also of the European Parliament and of the Council, then on 14 February 2023 the final approval by the Strasbourg assembly. It looked like a clear path, but the site Politico.eu he refers to an underground crisis that has already been going on for months, ie the existence of a “transparent dossier” which the Commission would have deliberately not taken into account. Indeed, on 29 June 2022, during the meeting of the Council of Environment Ministers of the EU countries, the Commission was officially required to carry out a Review Internship, a verification phase on the real progress made towards the reduction of emissions. In the same appointment, however, Germany managed to insert a mention of e-fuels in the Council conclusions, but obtaining only a non-binding addition, not in the main text. The German government would thus inevitably have been forced to assert its positions in a last-minute negotiation in the Committee of Permanent Representatives, a few days before the final vote in the Council. With results that led to paralysis.
uncertain outcome
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The news of 3 March 2023 recounts the choice of a “no vote”, registering the abstention of Poland and Bulgaria by way of dissent, but also the declaration of a contrary vote by Italy and the critical position of Germany, which precisely at the moment crucially, it would have made a request for a derogation from the European Union, allowing the sale of cars with combustion engines even beyond 2035, provided they are powered by e-fuel, i.e. neutral from the point of view of CO2 emissions. It was the paralysis of the “codecision” procedure, a scenario not contemplated. This procedure was introduced in 1992, is now renamed “ordinary legislative”, but still provides that “if a legislative proposal is rejected at any stage of the procedure, this is concluded. A new procedure can only start with a further proposal by the Commission”. With institutional shrewdness, therefore, the choice of a “non-vote” to the bitter end keeps the door open to negotiation at least until the date of the dissolution of the Strasbourg Parliament in view of the European elections scheduled for May 2024. If instead the governments Europeans considered the non-vote of 3 March as a formal step in the procedure, there would be a maximum term of three months from that date to obtain approval in the Council, under penalty of forfeiture of the proposal.
second track
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The whole game is now in danger of moving elsewhere. On 10 November the Commission presented the proposal for a regulation on the new Euro 7 standards for polluting emissions, destined to enter into force from 1 July 2025 for cars and light commercial vehicles and from 1 July 2027 for heavy vehicles sold in the ‘EU. Euro 7 was born as an ideal bridge that would have joined the provisions of the general objectives on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, regulated by the “Fit for 55” programme. Now the horizon of Euro 7 becomes more complex, because it could only be up to you to regulate the policies to contain emissions in the Union. The draft regulation produced by the Commission must now pass to the scrutiny of Parliament and the Council. The discussion on the text, which is not yet complete, will revolve entirely around the new maximum emissions of nitrogen oxides NOx. Compared to Euro 6, the current proposal provides for a limit of 60 mg/km, unchanged for petrol cars but significantly lower for diesel, now at 80 mg/km. The 35% cut also applies to vans, while a 56% reduction is required for heavy vehicles. A possible tightening of the limits in a short time remains the option on the table feared by many, capable of throwing the programming of new models by car manufacturers definitively off the table and therefore their availability for the public.
March 04, 2023 – 2:06 pm
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