Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-03-Speech-3-039"
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"en.20080903.4.3-039"2
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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again, we are talking about the car of the future – a topic that the European Parliament has already dealt with intensively this week in another connection.
Hydrogen has different properties to conventional fuels such as petrol and diesel, so the proposal makes a priority of determining the necessary safety requirements. In particular, we must ensure that storage of hydrogen in the vehicle is absolutely safe. This regulation will make all hydrogen powered vehicles put on EU roads as safe as conventionally powered vehicles. Hopefully this will also increase the public’s faith in unfamiliar new technologies. The proposal also introduces a system for identifying the vehicles, so that they are easily recognised by rescue services.
Close cooperation between Parliament, the Council and the Commission has had a positive effect on the outcome of the negotiations, so that I can only agree with all the proposed modifications your rapporteur, Mrs Weisgerber, has made.
Today we are discussing a technical opportunity that may be able to help us solve the environmental problems caused by vehicles. Let me repeat: it is something that
be able to help us. We do not know whether its potential can be implemented on a large scale, but we should make the most of the opportunity. That is what this is all about.
We all agree that sustainable mobility will be one of the key challenges that we will have to tackle in the years to come. We do not want to restrict the right of European citizens to individual mobility. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that this right to individual mobility – plainly speaking, the right to drive cars, to own and use a car – must be exercised in such a way that it does not destroy our environment, and that means that we need cars that do not harm the environment.
A comment in passing: it is not just because of the state of the environment that this is essential and urgent; it is also becoming increasingly important in economic terms. The traditional internal combustion engine is out of date because fuel consumption is so high. We must do everything possible to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels wherever it occurs.
Against this background, the question arises of whether we can facilitate the development of hydrogen powered vehicles. That is the idea that led to the suggestion made by the Commission, namely type-approval of hydrogen powered vehicles.
I should like first to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Weisgerber, for her constructive, successful work on this proposal. I am delighted that, thanks to her work, agreement at first reading was possible.
At this stage, we do not know which technology is best for sustainable mobility. If you read the newspapers and watch television, you are confronted with a different conclusion every day. While some talk of fuel cells, others enthuse about the electric car, and still others mention innovative high-performance batteries. There are many options to compete with hydrogen power; electric engines and fuel cells at the very least.
Our task is to stipulate the necessary safety regulations for promising technologies while maintaining strict technological neutrality. Obviously, hydrogen is one of these technologies. Hydrogen can replace conventional fuel and make a sizeable reduction in the harmful effects of road traffic on the environment. However, I would like to add, in brackets, that all these considerations make sense only if we can produce hydrogen in an environmentally friendly way. If hydrogen is produced using dirty energy, then all we are doing is shifting the problem.
The proposed regulation will integrate hydrogen powered vehicles into the European type-approval system. That way, hydrogen powered vehicles will be treated like traditional vehicles, in that a single permit will be sufficient for the entire European Union. This permit process is less cumbersome and much more affordable. Manufacturers can take care of all the formalities at a single point of contact, thus making considerable savings. This makes European industry more competitive and means less administrative hassle."@en1
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