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France is pushing for ‘flexibility’ on tougher car emissions rules next year, which could lead to billions of euros in fines for European carmakers already struggling with the slowdown in demand for electric vehicles.
Antoine Armand, France’s new economy minister, said on Tuesday that the French were sounding out to their European partners to see what could be done about the EU’s carbon emissions standards for 2025, which will impose limits on the quantity of emissions from a car manufacturer’s vehicle fleet.
The measures will impose penalties of more than 10 billion euros on French carmakers Renault, Peugeot Stellantis and German Volkswagen, unless they are able to increase the proportion of battery cars they sell or eliminate those with more traditional engines.
“I don’t see why there would be sanctions when enormous efforts (in investment) have been made (by car manufacturers),” Armand told auto industry leaders at the Paris Motor Show on Tuesday. Paris, a biennial exhibition of car designs focused more than ever on electric. versions.
“We cannot have sanctions without taking into account the economic context and the development of our industry in France and in Europe,” he declared. “We are exploring what flexibility there can be in cooperation with our European partners who are most engaged on this issue.”
Armand did not detail what form this flexibility could take – whether it involves reducing sanctions, modifying the underlying criteria or extending deadlines. He argued that a European deadline of 2035 to phase out non-electric car sales was necessary to get the industry to evolve.
Brussels is under growing pressure from carmakers to delay or relax its rules on car emissions, amid weakening demand for electric vehicles and concerns from automakers who fear paying millions of euros. euros in fines for pollution.
The Italian government has also been particularly outspoken in calling for a review of the 2035 ban, with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni calling it a “self-destructive policy”.
At the Paris show, Oliver Zipse, BMW’s chief executive, warned that Europe’s ban on internal combustion vehicles from 2035 would lead to “a massive shrinkage of the industry as a whole”.
The German group called for a faster review of the EU’s long-term goals, calling them “more realistic in view of current market dynamics.”
However, Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares on Monday warned against easing rules on carbon emissions, warning that delaying the shift to electric vehicles would lead to higher costs for the industry which would have to invest in both in conventional engines and in battery-powered cars.
The 2025 rules require automakers as a whole to reduce their emissions by 15 percent compared to the 2021 baseline.
So far, the European Commission has maintained the limits as well as the ban on new internal combustion engines from 2035.
At a closed-door event in Brussels last month, officials said the EU should stay the course on its vehicle emissions limits to provide certainty for investors.
“The worst thing we can do is create more uncertainty and confusion by changing again the targets we have agreed,” a senior EU official said.
Transport is the only major sector in the EU where emissions are higher today than they were in 1990.