Enough is enough, and by constantly asking more from an automobile industry in abeyance, revolt has surfaced. Faced with the very active green lobby in Brussels, EU member countries ruled out on Monday a further tightening of pollution standards on exhaust gases from private cars. They believe that it risked slowing down the colossal efforts of manufacturers to successfully transition to electric vehicles.
Worse, the Euro 7 standard involved investments out of proportion to a market which is set to decline in old Europe and which would have been impossible to amortize in the long term. According to the manufacturers, the additional cost per vehicle is estimated at 2,600 euros! It is therefore, under the leadership of France and Italy in particular, a first round won over green obscurantism. The Twenty-Seven, returning to more realism, voted in favor of less strict regulation than the proposal made by the European Commission in November 2022, in order to preserve the competitiveness of the automobile industry and its 14 million jobs in the EU.
This text on the Euro 7 standard was to apply from 2025, replacing Euro 6, to all passenger vehicles and heavy goods vehicles, regardless of their type of engine. The European Commission intended to significantly reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and fine particles from vehicles while, it said, air pollution is responsible for 70,000 deaths each year in the EU. A figure subject to doubt and which is far from being entirely the responsibility of the automobile, which represents 15% of total emissions.
But the industry had warned of the impact of overly strict standards on employment as well as on the price of cars, already less and less accessible for the middle class.
“The position of the member states is an improvement compared to the Commission’s proposal which was completely disproportionate,” said Sigrid de Vries, director general of the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA).
This text is “a disaster for air quality” because it “puts the record profits of car manufacturers before the health of citizens”, believes on the contrary Anna Krajinska for the NGO Transport
Adopted on Monday despite opposition from Germany, the proposal from Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, plans to keep the emission limits and testing conditions for passenger and utility cars almost unchanged. lightweight, compared to the previous standard. However, it confirms a lowering of emission thresholds for heavy goods vehicles as well as the introduction of limits set for the first time in Europe on the emission of particles caused by wear of brakes and tires.
France welcomed this position. “Since we have decided together to abandon thermal engines, it is not necessarily essential to add regulation” to these engines, explained the Minister for Industry, Roland Lescure.
The European Union has announced the end of sales of new gasoline and diesel cars from 2035, in favor of 100% electric vehicles, why in fact overbidding? This planned extinction of thermal engines should make it possible to reduce CO2 emissions from private cars to zero to contribute to the continent’s objective of carbon neutrality by 2050.
For the first time in August, the share of electric cars exceeded 20% of total registrations in Europe, contributing to lower exhaust emissions. But remember that this is not a natural market because it is heavily subsidized in many countries.
“We need to begin this transition without imposing a disproportionate burden on businesses. Otherwise they would no longer be able to invest, which would move us away from our ecological objective,” said Italian Business Minister Adolfo Urso.
Faced with massive investments to develop their new electric ranges in the face of formidable competition from Tesla and Chinese manufacturers, the automobile industry wants to avoid additional investments in thermal engines which are doomed to disappear anyway.
The position of Paris and Rome was notably shared by Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia.
“The current project is considerably weakened”, on the other hand lamented the environmentalist German State Secretary Sven Giegold, pointing out “unambitious test conditions and limit values which almost return to the level of the Euro 6 standard”.
“Thermal vehicles sold until 2035 will remain in circulation for a very long time,” underlined Irish Minister Delegate Dara Calleary, believing that the text did not allow the possibilities of available technologies to be exploited.
“The European market risks falling behind China, the United States and Canada, where standards are higher,” he said.