Weber silent on potential far-right cooperation over car CO2 emissions

The European People’s Party (EPP) hopes to reach agreement on a dramatic reversal of the EU’s internal combustion engine ban within the democratic centre of the European Parliament, chairman Manfred Weber has signalled while sidestepping questions about possible cooperation with the far right.

It was “a quite normal thing that a rapporteur presents an EPP report that is the starting point of a negotiation”, Weber told reporters on Wednesday when asked about a proposal to relax CO2 emissions standards for cars and vans to an extent that may be unacceptable to the centre-left.

The Socialists & Democrats, liberal Renew group and Greens had already been highly critical of the European Commission’s original proposal in December, which U-turned on the 2035 zero-emissions standard that would exclude new petrol and diesel cars from the EU market.

The Italian EPP member Massimiliano Salini, tasked with drafting the Parliament’s report on the proposal, wants to go beyond replacing the target with a 90% reduction in average emissions, introducing flexibilities that could reduce the target de facto to just 73%. Green MEP Michael Bloss told Euractiv the changes amounted to an overture to the parliament’s substantial far-right bloc.

Weber argued, however, that a 90% cut was already ambitious, “but we need flexibility for our corporate users”.

Salini has also proposed increasing a bonus offered to carmakers for every small, electric vehicle they produce, which would further increase the number of petrol and diesel models they could continue to sell after 2035.

Group leader Weber said the EPP would listen to “what socialists and liberals tell us on these issues, and then sit together and try to find a compromise.” However, he did not explicitly rule out cooperation with the far right when asked.

Pragmatism

“Four years ago, when we had the first debate, the EPP was isolated and was not listened to,” the president of the largest group in the parliament said. “The left-liberal majority did what they wanted to do, and they made mistakes.”

Weber was speaking ahead of a ‘high-level European car summit’ hosted by his group in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Alongside him, Mercedes-Benz Group CEO Ola Källenius and the president of the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (Clepa), Matthias Zink, both called for pragmatism from EU lawmakers.

Källenius said the industry was already committed to a forward-looking strategy of achieving zero emissions, but that the law nevertheless needed to be amended to reflect market realities. Faced with competition from China, he called on Europe to “look at its own competitiveness.” 

(rh, aw)