Italy is in dialogue with Germany, the Czech Republic and the other countries that have expressed doubts and opposition to the Commission’s proposal
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An agreement was reopened when it was already practically complete. And which is now in danger of jeopardizing the entire green revolution in the automotive industry. In addition to the political stalemate over the controversial diesel and petrol ban from 2035, a new fight is beginning in the EU car scene: that over the controversial Euro 7 standards that Brussels proposed last November and which still have to be negotiated.
The Strasbourg summit of the skeptics
Two sides of the same coin that led the Czech Republic to organize an unprecedented meeting between twelve skeptical countries – albeit motivated by different interests – attending an important plenary session on Monday 13 March in Strasbourg at the European Parliament premises for the Maxi climate package Fit for 55 with the first vote on green living.
Italy against stopping heat engines from 2035
An opportunity for Italy – Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini is attending the summit – to re-emphasize its clear opposition to the ban on internal combustion engines, on the strong side of Warsaw and Sofia. And from Berlin’s support, which has been shrouded in the internal debate of the traffic light coalition for weeks, to demand the expansion at least to the use of e-fuels. The meeting, on the official line of Czech Transport Minister Martin Kupka, aims to define a common position on changing the Euro 7 targets. “It is right to aim for zero CO2 emissions in the shortest possible time – declared Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – but States must be left free to choose the path they consider to be the most effective and sustainable. This means not blocking the path to clean technologies other than electricity from the outset. This is the Italian line that has found wide acceptance in Europe». In other words, each country must modulate the transition from gasoline and diesel engines to electric engines, taking into account its own reality. “A sustainable and fair transition – added Meloni – must be carefully planned and implemented to avoid negative impacts on production and employment”.
The knot
A regulation that, if approved as drafted by the EU executive, would require automakers to invest heavily in heat engines to further reduce pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, given the freeze on petrol and diesel car registrations expected in 2035, effectively rendering funding efforts useless.
The standstill in zero-emission cars
Reservations raised by Prague, along with Italy, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain, overlapping with the diplomatic paralysis of zero-emission cars are far from resolved. Held in check for the last mile of final ratification by the blocking minority of Rome, Berlin, Warsaw and Sofia, the agreement (now armored after the European Parliament’s final approval on February 14) was already defined as a “suicide” by the Salvini himself And his fate remains linked to the line taken by Olaf Scholz’s government, which so far does not seem to give up the call to the Palazzo Berlaymont for concrete commitments to ensure the use of low-emission fuels.
The other open front: that of the greenhouses
A ditch behind which the government majority is also taking action on the still completely open front of the greenhouses, in the first steps of the EU legislative process, in which MEPs are called to express their views in the first reading on Tuesday 14 March. A new test that, in all probability, will find the approval of the majority of the Chamber, but before which Minister Gilberto Pichetto has already dictated the line of opposition represented by the delegations of Forza Italia Fratelli d’Italia and Lega, ready to object compactly. A position that risks alienating Rome and Brussels.
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