European Commission President trying to move CO2 regulations forward
Attempts to implement new mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions have been stalled in recent months with French and Italian car-makers supporting tighter rules and German manufacturers looking for leniency. The French and Italians support proposals for an across-the-board fleet average requirement of 120 g/km of CO2 by 2012. The Germans want rules would allow more flexibility for the their larger, higher-powered cars. The European Commission is divided. German Enterprise Commissioner Guenter Verheugen and Greek Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas are on opposite sides regarding what penalties should be applied to manufacturers who don't meet the standards. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has now taken over the process of trying to reach a consensus before the end of the year. Barroso has stated publicly that financial penalties are a must if the rules are to be taken seriously. The fines being discussed range from 10 to 90 Euros per g of CO2 per car. There are also disagreements over how to apportion limits to different weight classes of vehicles with the Germans wanting higher limits for bigger cars where they dominate the market. Barroso will have his work cut out for him to reach any kind of agreement.
[Source: Automotive News - Sub. req'd]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karl-Uwe Strunzen 2:04PM (12/10/2007)
Well only Germany are left without a CO2 tax for 2008, so they are isolated anyway. Even their lobbying will only get them so far...
The Germans are last in CO2 for two reasons.
One is that they make a lot of wonderful SUVs and monstrous executives. What about all the other cars, ranging from a VW Fox to a VW Passat, then ??
The second reason is that even when a German car weighs the same or less than the French or Italian counterpart, it still emits, on average, more CO2.
For example:
Peugeot 308 2.0 HDi:
1421 kg, 146 g/km CO2
AUDI A3 2.0 TDI
1380kg, 149 g/km CO2
VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 2.0 TDI
1369 kg, 156 g/km CO2
CITROEN C4 2.0 HDi
1381 kg, 142 g/km CO2
and with the sedans such as:
VW Passat 2.0 TDI
140 hp, 154 CO2, 1454 kg
Renault Laguna 2.0 dCi
150 hp, 153 CO2, 1420 kg
(here the CO2 is almost the same but you also have a 10hp difference)
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rgseidl 6:35PM (12/10/2007)
@ Karl-Uwe -
there's been a lot of talk about Germany switching its vehicle license fee to one based on CO2, to implement an EU directive. The stumbling block was that this is a tax collected directly by the states rather than the federal finance ministry. Afaik, a compromise has been found and is due to come into effect in 2009, with a transition mechanism in 2008.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 10:46PM (12/10/2007)
Let me get this straight. The German carmakers lobbied against the EU CO2 emission directive, not the French or Italians, because in Germany the different states have competence in car taxes. I don't see the logic in this.
If someone were to tell me, however, that the French and Italian carmakers emit averages of 142, 144 and 148 g CO2/km and asked me to compare these figures with the German 166, 184 and 188, now this is an argument I can follow. Perhaps it's just me, but an enormous economic interest in halting the reforms becomes immediately obvious to me.
The competence of states in car taxes is a flawed argument for two reasons. The first is that following such logic, given the competence of the states in many other matters (beyond car taxes), it would follow that nothing would ever get done. This is clearly not the case. Secondly there are a great number of other EU countries where states (or regions) have competence in car taxes but have already implemented the car tax for 2008.
Indeed, since EVERYONE has already implemented the tax for 2009 to understand why the Germans are dragging their feet one should look at either a major difference with all other EU countries (and the idea of states or regions is not a major difference), or a huge interest in not doing what everyone else has done (and this is more than obvious).
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