The Five Star Movement (the Left) will urge EU countries to reject Italian Business and Made in Italy Minister Adolfo Urso’s plan to bring forward the review of the EU’s 2026 deadline for electric vehicles to 2025, which he will present in Brussels on Wednesday, the party told Euractiv Italy on Tuesday.
Italy’s proposal to bring forward the planned 2026 revision of the EU’s CO2 car emissions rules, which would see the sale of all-electric vehicles from 2035, “is gaining increasing support,” Urso said on Tuesday.
Urso is set to present the plan on Wednesday in Brussels, first to all Italian MEPs, then at an automotive meeting organised by the Hungarian presidency, and finally on Thursday at the Competitiveness Council.
However, during the meeting with Italian MEPs at 1 pm on Wednesday, the Five Star Movement (M5S) plans to challenge the minister’s proposal.
“Europe must not enter a feedback loop and change its position on electric mobility every two years,” Five Star MEP Valentina Palmisano told Euractiv.
“This creates confusion for car manufacturers, who instead need clear and stable regulations. We, therefore, call on all member states to boycott Urso’s proposal, which is a step backwards,” she added.
In a statement signed by Palmisano and fellow M5S MEP Dario Tamburrano, the party criticises Urso, accusing him of being “willing to do anything to destroy the electric vehicle sector, the only one capable of saving consumers money while reducing emissions in the transport sector.”
“Italy risks missing the future” because of him, the party added.
M5S disagrees with Urso’s claim that the electric car market is in crisis and that there needs to be change with regard to the transition to electric vehicles. Citing data from the International Energy Agency, they noted that by 2024, one in five cars sold worldwide will be electric.
However, Urso is pushing this proposal because “two years of uncertainty could lead to the collapse of the European car industry, and therefore the collapse of European industry,” the minister reiterated on Tuesday.
Also read: Germany joins Italy to call for earlier revision of CO2 targets for cars
However, for M5S, Orso’s plan “risks further isolating European manufacturers and making them irrelevant in the sustainable transition, with the dire consequence of millions of workers losing their jobs.”
Instead of waging ideological battles against electric vehicles, M5S urged Urso to focus on reducing charging costs in Italy, which are among the highest in Europe, increasing the number of charging stations and helping small and medium-sized enterprises in the automotive supply chain to make the transition.
They also criticised the push for biofuels as an alternative to electric vehicles, calling it another gift from the government to agribusiness lobbies seeking new, more lucrative markets and warning that it would have a disastrous effect on the climate by increasing deforestation and raising the price of fruit and vegetables on consumers’ tables.
(Alessia Peretti | Euractiv.it)
Source: euractiv.com
