Push for deal with Far East on car emissions

Date: 14/01/1999

By Renée Cordes

EUROPEAN Commission officials are intensifying their efforts to persuade Japanese and Korean carmakers to agree to tough carbon-dioxide emissions limits.

Commission officials are set to present their demands to the Koreans at a meeting next week and have given Japanese carmakers until the middle of next month to come up with a model agreement on restrictions.

The Commission hopes to unveil proposed agreements with groups representing the car industry from both countries at the March meeting of EU environment ministers.

Ideally, Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock would like both the Japanese and the Koreans to match the pledge given by EU carmakers to achieve a 25% cut in airborne pollution in Europe by 2008.

But the Far Eastern auto manufacturers argue that this target would be difficult to meet, especially in Korea, which lags far behind Europe in developing fuel-efficient technology.

"The target is very ambitious," said Darcy Nicolle, a spokesman for the Japanese car lobby group JAMA. "We are trying to find out ways we can meet it, but certainly at the moment it is hard to see how we can make the big jump in fuel efficiency."

But officials in the Commission's Directorate-General for environment (DGXI) reject this argument, insisting that an agreement is essential. "We do not want to give them too much time," added one.

European carmakers are urging the Commission to do what it can to make progress in the talks. "Japanese and Koreans should not get a competitive advantage over their counterparts in Europe," said Luc Bastard, of ACEA, although he acknowledged that it took two years to negotiate the European deal.