Car manufacturers and bad national policy have harmed the EU’s automotive industry much more than any European environmental standards, European People’s Party (EPP) lawmaker Peter Liese told reporters on Thursday.
“Eighty percent of the problems are created by the car manufacturers themselves, and by national governments,” Liese said, arguing that the EU standards on CO2 emissions are responsible for only some 10-11% of their woes.
EU emissions limits are tightening incrementally to zero by 2035, amounting to a de facto ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel models. But Liese said the impact of this prohibition on Europe’s automotive industry had been “overestimated”.
“The debate is somehow the opposite – that we created these problems – but this is definitely not true,” said Liese, who is the EPP’s coordinator on the Parliament’s environment committee.
Off-message
His remarks may come as a surprise, given that his political group has been at the vanguard of a campaign to ease regulation on the car industry, which claims it is in crisis due to “impossible” EU regulations aimed at driving a shift from fossil fuels to electricity.
As a matter of fact, the EPP in Brussels and his Christian Democrat party in Germany made the reversal of what is being cast as the outlawing of internal combustion engines a flagship electoral promise at both the EU and national level.
Liese’s fellow Christian Democrat, Friedrich Merz – who became chancellor earlier this year – recently persuaded his junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats, to make overturning the ban an official aim of the German government.
Liese himself suports the fight against the combustion engine ban, arguing that politicians should only mandate cars to be “climate neutral”, and leave engineers free to find the solution.
The China Problem
“The big problem is that China now produces their own cars, and that you have … Trump, and serious mistakes by the companies themselves,” Liese said, citing German political and industrial decisions as examples.
He argued that the abrupt halt to electric car incentives in Germany, as well as the 2015 Dieselgate scandal – whose fallout continues – have contributed to the EU automotive sector’s current difficulties.
He also pointed to the lack of affordable, small electric cars on the European market, saying that in the case of Europe’s largest carmaker, Volkswagen, this was the result of deliberate strategic choices.
Liese said the EPP is “very much in favour” of the French-sponsored idea of inserting ‘buy European’ rules into EU legislation, even if this position has not yet been formalised.
He added that the EPP supports integrating incentives for green steel uptake into EU car-emission legislation.
“When a car manufacturer uses green steel, that should be accounted for in a positive way,” he said.
(rh, aw)
