The “phase 2” of Green Deal (re)starts from the cars. And by a decisive relaxation, desired by EU governments, of environmental standards Euro 7 for cars and vans, which will be formalized on Monday by the Industry ministers meeting in the Competitiveness Council (for Italy the owner of Enterprises and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso will be in Brussels).
Ztl Rome, Euro 4 will be able to circulate: to save them, the switching on of the heating has been postponed
THE GUARANTEES
The Commission had proposed ten months ago the new crackdown, starting from 2025, on polluting emissions produced by cars other than CO2 (among these, in particular, nitrogen monoxide and carbon monoxide); a draft for the first time takes into account not only exhaust emissions but also those generated by the consumption of brakes and tyres. After a counterattack that began almost immediately, however, a broad front of countries led by Italy and France and which includes six other EU states (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania), is now preparing to dismantle the plant reform.
The compromise text on the new Euro 7 prepared by Spain, which until the end of the year has the rotating presidency of the Council, the representative body of the governments of the Twenty-seven, aims to leave the pollution limits in exhaust gases substantially unchanged compared to what is foreseen today by the Euro 6 standards. And further guarantees are contemplated to delay for a few years after the entry into force of the regulation, in some cases until 2030, the concrete application of the limits, including those newly introduced which concern the tires.
To find a solution to a «difficult dossier from the beginning», a diplomatic source familiar with the negotiations explained yesterday, «we concentrated on the particles in the brakes and batteries, while roughly maintaining the Euro 6 standards as far as concerns exhaust gas emissions.” The attempt to develop “a more ambitious text”, added the source, “came up against the lack of support from the member states”, who should, according to expectations, approve the draft by a qualified majority on Monday and then begin interinstitutional negotiations with the European Parliament.
The reasoning, according to those capitals that have put their foot down, is simple. The automotive sector is already facing huge costs linked to decarbonisation from 2035, the date on which the ban on diesel and petrol engines comes into force: imposing new constraints on car emissions now, in addition to the existing Euro 6, would mean penalizing the car sector, asking it to face what the French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire had branded as “useless costs”.
RESOURCES
The manufacturers themselves had warned Brussels and governments that providing for new environmental standards from 2025 would result in the diversion of resources already foreseen to support the transition to electric, in the global race with competitors from China and the United States. Under pressure from Germany, the inclusion in the text of a new reference to e-fuels will be discussed on Monday, the synthetic fuels that Berlin wanted, after heart-pounding negotiations, to “save” in the regulation which in the spring instead decreed the end of internal combustion engine from 2035. A commitment which has since become law in the EU and which is not called into question by the “soft” version of Euro 7.
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on Il Messaggero
2023-09-22 19:53:59
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