EU commission's CO2 tweak for cars imminent: Update

Market: Emissions
31/03/25

Updates with likely date for approval

The European commission could approve a legal proposal for a limited revision of the bloc's 2019 regulation setting CO2 emission performance standards for new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) on 1 April, an official said.

A draft proposal circulating does not change the substance of the 2019 rules but specifies a three-year compliance period (2025-2027) used to calculate potential excess emissions premiums. And the 29-page legal proposal does not alter the bloc's 2030 emissions reduction target to reduce economy-wide CO2 emissions by 55pc, compared to 1990. Nor does it lower the overall CO2 emission standards, the commission said.

If agreed by the European Parliament and EU member states, the "one-off" three-year compliance period over 2025-2027, instead of an annual assessment, would provide additional flexibility for vehicles manufacturers, while maintaining investor certainty and predictability, the commission added.

The 2019 regulation requires annual EU fleet-wide average CO2 emissions from new cars and new vans to be reduced in five-year intervals. For each year in 2025–2029, a target reduction of 15pc, compared with 2021 values, would normally be applied. Without any legal change approved by parliament and EU states, manufacturers exceeding their specific emissions targets, would have to pay excess emission premiums of €95 per g/km for each new vehicle registered.

The commission is also "accelerating" work on a review that will commence "in good time this year", said the commission's energy and climate spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen. But she had "nothing new" on whether compliant fuels could be expanded beyond e-fuels to include other low-carbon and zero-carbon, such as biofuels.

By Dafydd ab Iago

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