Brussels backs scrapping older cars to promote fuel-efficient models
The European commission yesterday threw its political weight behind industry calls for an EU-wide scheme to offer motorists incentives to take their old cars off the road and buy new fuel-efficient, cleaner models.
The commission also urged the European Investment Bank (EIB) to offer up to €40bn (£32bn) in soft loans to help the car industry design new green technologies.
The push emerged from a meeting of commissioners, motor industry chief executives, ministers and MEPs to help carmakers confronted by a slump in sales and potentially huge layoffs.
Christian Streiff, Peugeot Citroën chief and head of the car industry lobby group ACEA, said west European sales in the third quarter were down 10% and could fall further in the current quarter. Car sales are at a 10-year low as credit freezes.
Streiff, who is closing his plants for 20 working days between now and Christmas, said scrapping older vehicles could produce carbon savings of 20 megatonnes a year or 4.5% of total car emissions.
In western Europe, 36% of cars on the road are more than eight years old and, even in hi-tech Germany, there are said to be hundreds of thousands of vehicles more than 15 years old.
The ACEA plan draws on a previous scheme under French centre-right governments to persuade consumers to buy new cars. France now operates a “bonus/malus” scheme that cuts prices of fuel-efficient models - and raises them for gas-guzzlers.
Günter Verheugen, EU industry commissioner, said the proposed scheme would have to be financed by national governments but could operate on a pan-European basis. Backing the idea, he said: “We can’t have cross-border tourism in this, with consumers criss-crossing Europe to find the highest premium to scrap their old car.”
The EU scheme mirrors the $25bn (£16bn) loan package by the Bush administration for America’s three big carmakers - GM, Ford and Chrysler - to convert their plants to green technologies.
It is understood that the EIB is wary of committing such a large amount of its lending over several years.
Green campaigners denounced the use of taxpayers’ money on an industry that had failed to meet its fuel-efficiency targets. Verheugen insists the loans would not be subsidies.
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