Tomorrow’s vote on ending polluting cars from 2035 could be postponed again. After the “no” of Italy, Poland and Bulgaria and the likely abstention of Germany, there is a risk of a resounding rejection of the key regulation of the European Green Deal. For this reason, the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU may decide on a further postponement, after Wednesday’s.
The impression is that in the end the device will pass, it will only take time to turn Berlin’s abstention into yes and give the guarantees requested by the German government. First of all, the Commission presents a new measure to allow the registration of cars running on synthetic fuels, the e-fuel, even after 2035.
Italy, on the other hand, sticks to the point and reiterates that it will vote ‘no’ regardless. “Italy votes against as a signal” to the European institutions also on “other dossiers that are still open, not only those relating to the automotive sector but also those relating, for example, to packaging or eco-textiles”, said the minister of Companies and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, on the sidelines of the Competitiveness Council in Brussels. The EU Council is still surprised by Italy’s change of heart from November, when the government itself voted in favor of the measure.
Meanwhile, “the world has changed”, argues the owner of Mimit, recalling the 700 billion made available by the US with the Inflation Reduction Act to support green companies. And then, it is the government’s thesis, there is not only electricity as a solution to reduce emissions, but we should also bet on biofuels, “which can give the same result in the short term”. Also because critical raw materials imported from China are needed to produce the batteries. “We cannot move from subordination to Russian fossil fuels to an even more serious subordination to the critical raw materials that are China’s prerogative and the green technology that is now widely manufactured in Asia.”
In short, it is a political message that comes from Brussels and Rome, “a warning signal, a warning for the whole of Europe, not to take anything for granted and say that Italy is there”, in the words of Minister Urso, convinced that that on the other EU dossiers “there will be greater awareness in the coming months because they recognized that Italy has returned to the field, as a great founding country of the European Union, and knows well what is the feeling and the need for this continent”.
The government’s strategy seems to want to shuffle the cards on the table, gain time on the hottest issues and point to a change in the majority in the European Parliament with next year’s elections, and the launch of a new European Commission. Especially because the majority of Úrsula was divided precisely on the prohibition of polluting cars from 2035, with the EPP voting against.
Tomorrow morning it will be known whether the item on the Regulation on CO2 emissions from cars and vans will be removed, it seems, from the agenda of Coreper, the meeting of permanent representatives. Consequently, it would also be removed from the agenda of the Board of Education for next Tuesday, March 7, which would definitively approve the device.
Source: IL Tempo
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
