The final version of the Euro 7 standard on polluting emissions will be much less demanding than the Brussels proposal.
The Environment Committee of the European Parliament approved this Thursday by 52 votes in favor, 32 against and one abstention a report that proposes reducing the main measures proposed by the European Commission on polluting emissions from vehicles by up to five years. Popular, liberal and ultra-conservative MEPs voted in favor of this approach while socialists and environmentalists voted against it. The current balance of power in the European Parliament thus points towards a negotiating position with the Council, the institution where the governments of the Twenty-Seven sit, also downward with respect to the levels initially proposed.
The report aims to postpone until July 1, 2030 for cars and vans and until the entry into force of the new tailpipe emissions limits and until July 1, 2031 in the case of buses and trucks, four and five years later, respectively, than proposed by Brussels. The text does support the proposals on the reduction of emission levels of nitrogen oxides, particles, carbon monoxide and ammonia.
“We have managed to achieve a balance between environmental objectives and the vital interests of manufacturers”, and this calendar “will not create impossible challenges for the industry or place an excessive burden on consumers, cars must not become more expensive”, defended the rapporteur of the report, the Czech Alexandr Vondra, an ally of Vox in the European Conservatives and Reformists group. The text will be put to a vote in the plenary session that the European Parliament will hold in November. From there will emerge the negotiating position with which they will sit down to negotiate with the Spanish presidency of the Council.
The deadlines proposed by the MEPs are even more relaxed than those agreed upon by the EU Environment Ministers, who agreed to defend the application of the new rules, softened with respect to the original proposals, only in 2027 for light vehicles and in 2029 for heavy vehicles, as well as giving more time to the new limits for reducing particles from tires.
The Euro 7 standard aims to replace the current one, known as Euro 6, during the transitional period that the automobile industry faces until the cut-off date of 2035, when it will be prohibited to register cars that emit CO₂ in the EU. The proposal was received enthusiastically by the large European manufacturers, who consider that it will force them to make additional investments in the midst of the transformation towards the electric car and this Thursday they congratulated themselves on the vote. The employers' association of European automobile suppliers, on the other hand, defends that these technologies are already available and regretted that the EU does not commit "to cleaner air."
