Commission prepares Dutch car-pollution precedent ruling

By Emily Smith

The European Commission is set to rule on how far EU countries can act unilaterally to reduce air pollution from cars.

A Commission decision, scheduled for next Wednesday (3 May), will tell the Netherlands whether or not it can introduce standards tougher than the EU norm for air pollution from motor vehicles.

The Dutch government has asked the Commission for permission to make it compulsory from January 2007 for new cars on sale in the Netherlands to have filters reducing diesel emissions of particulates to below 5 milligrams per kilometre (mg/km).

This is one year earlier than the deadline put forward last year by the Commission in its so-called Euro 5 vehicle air pollution proposal.

Austria, Denmark and Germany are also thought to be considering going further than Euro 5 and are likely to see the ruling on the Netherlands as a green or red light for tough new national standards.

A Commission spokesman said the internal market implications of the Dutch proposal were "a complex matter".

"We will have to look into them very carefully," he said, adding that it was too early to know what the final decision would be.

But a Dutch source said that he expected the Commission to block the Netherlands' move towards tougher emission standards, saying that signs from Brussels were "not positive".

Environmental campaign group Transport & Energy (T&E) said that the Commission had last year approved tax breaks for EU countries wanting to promote cars emitting no more than 5mg/km of particulates.

T&E Director Jos Dings said this suggested internal market problems stemming from compulsory standards in the Netherlands would be "minimal", since all EU countries seemed to agree 5mg/km was the particulate emission level to aim for.

"The Dutch don't want to spend tax money on this, they want to take a different approach and go a step further than fiscal measures...Why should countries have to spend public money promoting cleaner cars?"

T&E sees the Dutch proposal as "a positive move". "We will be sorry if the Commission says no," he said.

But Dings conceded that "formally the Commission has a point" in its fears about just one EU country making some new car models illegal. "And that country can expect a power struggle with the Commission, which says it sets these standards in Brussels."

Appropriate pollution standards for diesel cars were a particular point of European controversy during the drafting of Euro 5.

The Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas and Green groups pushed for tougher pollution standards than those eventually proposed. Enterprise Commissioner Günter Verheugen and industry lobbyists argued that the emission levels chosen for particulates and nitrogen oxides (NOx) struck the right balance between competitiveness and environmental progress.

Nevertheless the 2008 deadline worries carmakers, with the EU car industry group ACEA saying its members need more time to make the necessary changes.

Article anticipates a decision by the European Commission, scheduled for 3 May 2006, in which it was to tell the Netherlands whether or not it would be allowed to introduce standards tougher than the EU norm for air pollution from motor vehicles. The Dutch government had asked the European Commission for permission to make it compulsory from January 2007 for new cars on sale in the Netherlands to have filters reducing diesel emissions of particulates to below 5 milligrams per kilometre (mg/km).

European Commission: DG Enterprise and Industry: Automotive Industry: Pollutant emissions http://ec.europa.eu/comm/enterprise/automotive/pagesbackground/pollutant_emission/index.htm

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