Between the objectives they set for themselves in the green pact in order to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050 and the reorientation of their priorities towards increasing the competitiveness of their industry, Europeans are groping. The Twenty-Seven are seeking the crest line which should allow them to remain champions in the fight against global warming, while catching up with the United States or China in the sectors of the future. In any case, this is the official discourse, which hides real disparities between those who wish, in passing, to reduce environmental regulations and those who, on the contrary, want to preserve their objectives.
From this point of view, the fate that the European Union (EU) will reserve for an automobile industry, today in the midst of a crisis, will be emblematic. In April 2023, after heated debates between member states and in the European Parliament, the regulation which prohibits the sale of new vehicles with thermal engines in 2035 was finally adopted. Since then, its detractors – in Italy, in Germany or in the Christian Democratic ranks of the European People’s Party (EPP), in the European Parliament – have never silenced their criticism, as evidenced by the plan that the EPP must present on Wednesday 11 December, to ease the obligations of manufacturers.
But the European elections of June 9, which saw the right and the far right progress, gave them new arguments. Especially since the entire sector is suffering, social plans are multiplying and across the Atlantic, President-elect Donald Trump has promised to overtax European imports, starting with German cars, when China dumps its excess capacity on the Old Continent. In this context, calls to support the European automobile industry now go beyond the circle of early protesters of legislation that they consider too green and come from almost the entire Union.
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“Opening the way” to other technologies
The ban on the sale of thermal engine cars by 2035 is a « suicide » economical and “incredible gift to China”repeated the Italian Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, Thursday December 5. That same day, Italy and the Czech Republic, with the support of Austria, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, called, in a joint note, for a long-term strategy for the automobile industry , with a multi-year investment plan and a specific state aid scheme.
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