The European Parliament's bigger political groups struck a deal with the Council of Ministers on emission standards for passenger cars last night. This deal significantly weakens the target of reaching 130g CO2/km by 2012 as proposed by the European Commission.

 

"This agreement means that the car industry can basically continue with business as usual until 2019. It is very disappointing," said GUE/NGL MEP Jens Holm (Sweden).

 

"It sends out very worrying signals to other industries and to the rest of the world. If the European car industry cannot take greater environmental responsibility than this, how shall we then convince countries outside the EU to take similar measures?" he continued.

 

The car industry is one of the fastest growing sources of CO2 emissions in the EU. Between 1990 and 2005, CO2 emissions from the European transport sector increased by 32%. Some 27% of the EU's total CO2 emissions come from transport, half of them from passenger cars. The Commission had already proposed a target of 120 grams CO2/km for European passenger cars in 1995.

 

Last night's agreement (*) means a phasing-in period from 2012-2015 of the volumes of cars that need to comply with the target. A phasing-in period of penalties that car manufacturers have to pay if they do not comply will also apply from 2012-2018. This means car manufacturers will not have to pay the full penalty of 95 euros for each gram that exceeds the target until 1 January 2019! Therefore it will be simply cheaper for them to pay the low fines than to achieve the targets. The result is that legislation first introduced in 1995 and that should apply in 2012 will now only apply 2019!

 

"I simply cannot support a deal that means business as usual for the car industry," MEP Holm concluded.