Decarbonising road transports to revive our economy.

Today the European Parliament will vote on the Commission´s proposal to change the existing regulation on the CO2 standards Regulation for cars and vans. The proposal will allow manufacturers to meet their compliance targets by averaging their performance over a 3-year period (2025 to 2027) instead of having to meet by the end of 2025. The European Parliament already approved the urgent procedure on Tuesday. The Greens/EFA will vote against this proposal, which it considers unjustified and harmful to both our industry and consumers.

Kai Tegethoff MEP, Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur for the file, comments:

“By postponing the EU 2025 CO2 emissions target for two years, the Commission is scrambling the signal for the industry and discrediting our objective of accelerating electric mobility. The Greens/EFA are deeply concerned about the future of the EU car industry.

The EU should plan certainty and massive investments in e-mobility to make the European car industry competitive on the international market. Instead, the Commission is rewarding the automotive companies that distributed dividends instead of investing in new technologies and preserving jobs. This proposal is not only unjustified, it is also unfair to companies that are already deploying massively electric vehicles on the market and those that are producing batteries or charging installations.

This fad also runs counter to consumers´ demands for affordable and smaller e-cars made in Europe. What’s more, it weakens us by increasing our dependence on China. Needless to say that authoritarian China did not invest in clean technologies out of environmental fanaticism nor to improve air quality for its people but to seize a genuine economic opportunity.”