Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-075"
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"en.20070131.19.3-075"2
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".
Mr President, I rise once more in order to respond in strong terms to an attack by Mrs Harms on the German Presidency of the Council, in relation to the question as to where the German Council Presidency stands on the involvement of the motor industry in dealing with climate change.
My fourth comment, for Mrs Harms’ benefit, is that I think there are two things that we really must not do. Perhaps she and I can agree on that if on nothing else, and what I say is also the position taken by the German Government. It would be mistaken to involve the motor industry in emissions trading in Europe, since that would have the consequence of making emissions trading even more complex, and it is already too complex as it is, so it makes sense to do this outside the emissions trading system.
We might perhaps also agree that the reduction of CO2 output is a task for the future that we ought not to hand over to the private sector by saying that it is, in the final analysis, dependent on individuals’ driving habits. The challenge is a technological one, and it is one we want to face in a technological way, by changing motor vehicle technology and taking some account of the development of synthetic biofuels and of the way they are added.
If your question had to do with the position of the German Government, then I hope that the answer I have given is sufficient for you. If, though, your question was directed at the Presidency of the Council – which is how I understood it – then I would be obliged if you would have the decency to allow the Presidency the chance to have at least a general debate in the Environmental Affairs Council, which it will be able to do only once the Commission has released a communication on the subject.
I have to say that, if your suggestion was to be understood as a request for such a communication in order that a general debate might be made possible, then that would be the part – indeed the only part – of your speech with which I would find myself in agreement.
The first thing I want to say to Mrs Harms is that the Council Presidency cannot as yet have a position on this issue, since the Commission has produced no proposal, nor has there been as yet any deliberation at Council level. On the assumption that you mean the position of the German Federal Government, Mrs Harms, I suggest that there are a number of things of which you need to take note, the first of which is that your assertion that the German Federal Government is opposed to a legislative proposal and to Europe-wide legislation laying down CO2 emissions of 120 gram per kilometre is very definitely wrong. There is agreement within the German Government that, if the voluntary undertaking on the part of the European motor industry should prove ineffective, there will of course have to be European legislation with the aim of enforcing an output of 120 gram per kilometre of CO2. Secondly, though, the German Federal Government does take the view that …
… if the European motor industry has set itself this target for 2012, it should be taken at its word. There, too, the German Government is not taking up an opposing position.
Secondly, though, the German Federal Government is persuaded that we must achieve this 120-gram target together and through two things, the first being vehicle technology and the second, the inclusion of some biofuels.
I have no idea what you mean by that not working; that is something we will have to debate when the time comes, but the point I am trying to make is this: do we want – and I really would prefer it if we could carry on this debate calmly – do we want the effect of the development of the first generation of biofuels to be more competition among foodstuffs, the consequence of which has already been seen in Mexico, where maize bread, the staple food of the poorest of the poor, has become some 60% more expensive, or do we want to invest in synthetic fuels, in the second generation of biofuels? Yes or no?
If that is what we want, we have to get the market interested in it. It goes without saying that the motor industry and the oil industry have an interest in developing synthetic fuels that will obviate this competition in the food sector, if we make it possible for them to achieve some of this 120-gram target by taking biofuels into account, and, while we will have to argue about the substance of that, I would ask Mrs Harms not to act as if the German Government had some sort of objection to the 120 gram target being enforced by legislation.
Thirdly, I hope we agree on the need to achieve this target as an average taken across the whole range of motor vehicles, by reducing consumption and the output of CO2 by all motor vehicles, from the top of the range to the smaller ones, and including middle of the range models. If, though, what the European motor industry has undertaken to do has to be enforced by law, it will be done in the manner intended, that being across all classes of motor vehicles, so that an average of 120 grams of CO2 per kilometre is achieved."@en1
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