Polluting cars and the EU: Meloni, each state decides the road

“Postponed to a later date”.
A few words were enough to summarize the unexpected cul de sac into which Europe’s ban on petrol and diesel cars has slipped starting from 2035. Early in the morning, the awaited meeting of the Deputy Permanent Representatives in the EU recorded, precisely like Wednesday, the impossibility of continuing on the approval of the Regulations.
Italy rejoices. Starting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who speaks of “Italian success” and makes a decisive lunge: “it is right to aim for zero CO2 emissions in the shortest possible time, but the freedom must be left to the States to take the path they deem most effective and sustainable “This means not closing the path towards clean technologies other than electricity a priori. This is the Italian line that has found wide acceptance in Europe”. In other words, each country must modulate the transition from petrol and diesel engines to electric ones by taking into account its own reality, which is also made up of people. “A sustainable and fair transition – sums up the prime minister – must be carefully planned and carried out, to avoid negative repercussions in terms of production and employment”.
Here’s what happened. Italy, Poland and Bulgaria said they were against it and Germany, which had asked for adequate compensation on e-fuels, didn’t trust them: together they would have made up the blocking minority necessary to reject the regulation. The Swedish presidency, faced with a vote that would have made the Commission tremble, has therefore postponed the file.
The point was also removed from the agenda of the Education Council scheduled for Tuesday, where formal ratification of the text was awaited. In short, a real earthquake, forcing the Commission and in particular the Vice President Frans Timmermans, to reflect deeply. “The objective remains technological neutrality. We are in contact with the Member States on the new concerns that have emerged”, specified the spokeswoman of the EU executive Dana Spinant, trying to mask the disappointment that is spreading at Palazzo Berlaymont. In order to undermine the German wall, Brussels will try to work on one of the “recitals” which act as a prequel to the actual rules, and in particular on the one on the basis of which “the Commission will evaluate progress towards the achievement of the objective, taking account of technological developments and the importance of a sustainable economic and socially just transition towards zero emissions”.
It is in this framework that a compromise with Berlin will be tried. Ursula von der Leyen is expected to attend a meeting of the federal government at Schloss Meseberg on Sunday, and she could mention it. The German government, moreover, is divided on environmental dossiers: the liberals (who express themselves as Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Transport Minister Volker Wissing) are against, the Greens are in favor while the SPD is caught between the two opposites. In Italy, however, the government is united against the regulation. At the news of the postponement of the vote, Lega and Fdi rejoiced while Fi spoke of Timmermans’ “political defeat”. Electricity cannot be the only solution of the future, especially if it continues, as it is today, to be a supply chain for the few”, underlined the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto. “Italy has awakened Europe”, commented my colleague Adolfo Urso who, only Thursday, had pronounced Rome’s no to the Competitiveness Council.
The position of Poland is also firm, which however has added an appendix that goes in the opposite direction to that of Italy: opposition to the so-called Motor Valley derogation, for luxury car manufacturers. The feeling is that the green and digital transition is one of the tracks on which slogans and alliances will run for the next European Championships. On the one hand, the Greens, centre-left, and the M5S, not surprisingly furious at the postponement of the stop to endothermic engines; on the other, a centre-right formed by the Ppe, the Ecr and part of the ID which, not surprisingly, had voted against in the plenary session last February. From here to the Europeans, however, the path of the Fit for 55 becomes much more impervious: Italy has already announced a battle on the rules for the Euro 7, for packaging and for heavy polluting vehicles.
And he is likely to be in good company.