Urso: 'EU review on car standards to be radical and effective'

"We expect the EU Commission to carry out a radical and effective revision of the regulation on CO2 emissions on cars and to do the same with regard to heavy duty vehicles and commercial vehicles". This was said by Adolfo Urso, Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy, on Monday 8 December, on his arrival at the Competitiveness Council in Brussels, emphasising that the revision will have to be based on the indications provided "by German Chancellor Merz in his letter to Ursula von der Leyen and by Giorgia Meloni and other countries in the same direction". Urso then pointed out that the car industry 'is the leading industry in Europe and involves other industries such as steel, steel, chemistry, plastics, microelectronics, chips, artificial intelligence'.

More generally, according to the Italian minister, "Europe has to do it on its own and is in a position to do so. If it raises its head, if it thinks. Europe must do its part, thinking of its companies, its workers, its citizens' and 'it must not isolate itself from other countries in the south of the world that can share this strategy of development and growth. I believe that Europe must also move towards strategic autonomy' while remaining 'well aware that the United States is and remains our main ally,' he added.

The European Commission must "act immediately to protect our Continent's industry from unfair competition from non-European players, foster its development, and ensure an adequate financial endowment to support industrial transition. We will not accept any buffer measures, we need immediate, clear, radical, effective reforms," said the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, in Brussels for the fourth meeting of the Ministerial Alliance for Energy Intensive Industries, chaired by Italy and attended by ministers and counterpart undersecretaries from 25 European countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Poland. Urso, informs a note from the Ministry, pointed out that Europe is at a crucial moment 'for the presentation of a number of regulatory proposals that will be fundamental for relaunching the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries'.

From 3 December onwards, the economic security package is on the table with 'ReSource Eu', an initiative on critical and strategic raw materials that are essential for the value chains of European industry: "It is important that the European Commission continues to monitor the flow of scrap to non-EU countries, in the light of which urgent restraint measures will have to be adopted," Urso pointed out. In the coming weeks, the Commission will also express its views on the Industrial Accelerator Act and the revision of the Cbam (Carbon Border Adjustment Mecbamism, the EU's 'climate tariffs'), on which Italy has reiterated clear expectations shared with the most exposed sectors: "From the first," said Urso, "we expect an organic framework for the promotion of clean technologies, including steel and green cement, the simplification of permits and the introduction of the principle of European preference, the basis for promoting 'Made in Europe' goods and services. From the second package, on the other hand, concrete answers will have to come for the targeted extension of the Cbam to downstream products, to block phenomena of circumvention of the mechanism and to protect our exporters".