The Crittenden Automotive Library

For The Love Of Angela

For The Love Of Angela

Geoff Maxted
DriveWrite
October 6, 2013

It is now official that we’ve only got ourselves to blame. Scientists are 95% certain that our atmospheric ills are down to our own misguided behaviour. Clearly our EU masters already knew this for a fact as they have been reeling out many tough automotive regulations. Well, in Germany there’s a woman for whom enough is enough.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has just won herself another term in office. So worried was she, pre-election, about the planned stringent rules being foisted onto German car makers by the EU that she lobbied against the new targets. Clearly not a woman to be argued with, the EU has toed the Merkel line.

They have delayed for a third time a target to cut average CO² emissions from Europe's new-car fleet to 95g/km after some tough lobbying. At a meeting of EU member states last Friday, Germany's call to delay a vote on the limit was backed by Britain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, an EU source said - on condition of anonymity obviously.

Merkel's government aims to water down a deal agreed in June to cut average emissions of new cars sold in the EU to 95g/km by 2020 from about 130/g/km now. The 95g/km target is equivalent to fuel use of 4 litres per 100km (71 UK mpg).

An EU mouthpiece is quoted as saying governments want more time to consider a German plan for a phase-in period. Under the German proposal the 95g/km limit would apply to 80 percent of cars produced in 2020, rising by 5 percentage points each year to reach full implementation only in 2024.

A manager of EU Transport & Environment, said in a statement that Germany's attempts to change the 95g/km target was intended "to give a competitive advantage to BMW and Daimler, who already receive much higher targets than mainstream carmakers." What else does he expect?

Lithuania, holder of the EU presidency, said on Friday that the issue had been deferred for a debate and a possible vote at a council of environment ministers in Luxembourg on Oct. 14. And so it rolls on and there‘s nothing you can do about it.