Paris wants the EU to postpone sanctions planned for car manufacturers until 2025

The French government will ask Brussels to postpone the sanctions targeting European automobile manufacturers which have not reached the objectives on CO2 emissions in 2025, announced Antoine Armand, the Minister of the Economy, in an interview with the Echoes published Sunday. “We must stay the course of decarbonization and the 2035 deadline for the end of the thermal engine. But let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot!”declared the minister in the columns of the newspaper.

“If we have to impose gigantic fines on manufacturers because they have not moved fast enough, the first consequence will be to weaken investment and above all to strengthen our Asian competitors”he continued. “Manufacturers firmly committed to the electrification of vehicles should not have to pay fines in 2025: I will defend this position with Marc Ferracci (the Minister of Industry, editor’s note) to the Commission and our counterparts”he assured.

Antoine Armand will participate in the Eurogroup and Ecofin meetings in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday. Car manufacturers must respect an annual average of emissions per car sold in Europe. This so-called CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard requires manufacturers to gradually sell less and less polluting vehicles. It has been generally respected so far but it must reach a new level from January 2025.

Paris is not considering sanctions

Antoine Armand had already indicated that the French government “did not consider” that car manufacturers be sanctioned at European level for non-compliance with CO2 emissions standards, but this discrepancy is a novelty brought by the minister at European level with Marc Ferracci. “I do not envisage sanctions being imposed even though immense efforts have been made” by the sector to electrify, declared Mr. Armand to the professionals gathered at the Automobile Summit, on the sidelines of the Paris Motor Show in mid-October.

Antoine Armand indicated on this occasion that the government was exploring “all flexibilities (…) in coalition with our European partners (…) to avoid penalizing our manufacturers in their investments, precisely at the most crucial moment of their industrial transition.” Most European manufacturers have asked Brussels for urgent aid measures to face the tightening in 2025 of CO2 emissions standards which they consider themselves incapable of respecting, in particular because of the erosion of car sales electrical.