Brussels votes next Wednesday the proposal to ban combustion engines in 2035

MADRID, 6 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The European Parliament will vote next Wednesday on the proposal to put an end to sales of new cars and vans with a combustion engine in the year 2035. In addition, the European Executive must decide whether to set targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions (CO2 ) higher for manufacturers.

The plenary session of the European Parliament will debate the day before the vote that 2035 be the date set to ban the sale of combustion and hybrid vehicles throughout the EU, as proposed last summer by the European Commission and what it means to advance in five years the previously approved target.

The Environment Commission (ENVI) voted in favor of this new time frame to 2035 at the beginning of May, however even more ambitious intermediate objectives in this field were not approved. Thus, the proposal for a 40% reduction in emissions from cars and 35% from vans by 2027 was rejected, while a 70% reduction for cars and 65% for vans by 2030 resulted in a tie. .

However, the 'green light' was given as a starting point for a proposal that includes gradual progress with an intermediate goal of reducing polluting emissions from new cars and vans by 55% in 2030 and reducing them to zero five years later. .

The European Parliament guidelines also include ideas such as eliminating the incentive mechanism for zero and low emission vehicles (ZLEV), considering that it no longer fulfills its original purpose.

Furthermore, they call for the Commission to present a report on progress towards the zero emissions target for road mobility by the end of 2025 and to continue with an annual assessment thereafter, also looking at the impact on consumers and employment, the level of use of renewable energies, as well as information on the second-hand market.

Likewise, they entrust the EC with a report by the end of 2023 detailing the need for specific financing to guarantee a fair transition in the automotive sector, with the aim of containing the negative effect on employment and other economic impacts.

Finally, they advocate establishing a clear methodology next year with which to assess the full life cycle of CO2 emissions from cars and vans sold on the EU market, as well as the fuels and energy consumed by these vehicles.

The Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA) has defended that despite the fact that the automobile industry is undergoing changes to decarbonise and offer carbon-neutral mobility solutions in the European Union, the internal combustion engine will continue to be a solution for mobility "for many years".

The association has indicated that the transition to climate-neutral road transport will require many "coherent" policy measures across the European Union, especially for road transport.

ACEA has also proposed to improve the key parameters of gasoline and diesel, which will allow better quality control and reduce polluting emissions from old and new vehicles for the benefit of air quality.

For its part, the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (Clepa) has shown its support for the trend towards electrification, but has stated that the transition must be managed "properly" and have demanded that the technologies not be prohibited, but the use of fossil fuels if you want to reduce emissions.

Despite this, the association has highlighted that the gradual elimination of internal combustion engine technology by the year 2035 would mean that around 501,000 jobs of suppliers that manufacture components of these systems become obsolete.

Of that half a million jobs, 70% (359,000 people) will probably be lost in the period from 2030 to 2035, which highlights the "limited time available" to manage the social and economic repercussions.

For its part, Transport

The association has argued that the profit margins of electric vehicle companies will exceed those of combustion engine manufacturers in three to five years. Similarly, by the end of the 2020s, engine manufacturers' profit margins will have shrunk and could even be negative on balance sheets.

In Spain, the Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (Anfac) has defended the implementation of additional public measures to the current ones, in case the proposal finally goes ahead. In addition, they have defended that now is not the time to decide the objectives to be achieved in 2035, but that before that it would be necessary to wait until 2028.

In the same way, the association has pointed out that if the Spanish Government finally decides to support a new acceleration of the objectives "these new measures are even more necessary and urgent", since if the Spanish automobile industry and employment are not adopted " could face a serious problem given the high demands of the new objectives that are intended to be approved".