Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-22-Speech-1-144"
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"en.20071022.16.1-144"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, may I say to Mr Davies that we should recall clearly why we have to discuss stringent binding emission limits. The reason is that, following a voluntary agreement concluded between the Commission and the car industry more than ten years ago, the latter has knowingly and wilfully failed to meet its targets. The present situation, as we know, is not down to bad luck or an unforeseeable turn of events but to decisions taken by the senior management of manufacturing groups.
For that reason, Mr Davies, I am somewhat stunned at the clear message you have now sent through your amendments – which I saw for the first time today, although they may have existed for longer – that, in spite of what was decided in the Environment Committee, you no longer have any interest in exerting pressure on the innovative potential and innovative power of the car industry in Europe
My opinion is that we can only achieve Europe’s climate targets through the strict limits that were originally proposed by the Commission. It is also my opinion – and you rightly addressed this point, Mr Dimas – that we shall not be able to obtain security of energy supply for our transport needs unless we ensure without delay that cars become more efficient, because we cannot stand by and watch as oil that is valuable and hard to come by continues to be squandered on our roads.
The third point, to which the Committee on Industry, whose opinion I drafted, attaches such great importance is the need to ensure at long last that the knowledge and ability of engineers and developers in the car industry are brought into play, and that these good engineers are not further stifled by misguided management policies. I am firmly convinced that nothing but efficient, climate-friendly and affordable but stylish cars would be on the market within a very short time and that those who are easing the pressure for innovation today by setting what are truly very soft time limits for achieving reduction targets, Mr Davies, will bear responsibility if the European car industry proves uncompetitive in the long run and if jobs are lost in car manufacturing in Europe.
It goes without saying that the global car market will change out of all recognition – assuming we accept the underlying premises of our climate policy and our UN climate policy – and that those who are now applying the brakes to the process of reducing emission limits will then bear responsibility for the car industry in Europe going to the dogs and for a situation in which we ourselves no longer take our own climate policy seriously."@en1
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