Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-14-Speech-1-095"
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"en.20080114.14.1-095"2
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"Mr President, I would like to respond immediately to the question from Mr Turmes. My comment had nothing whatsoever to do with the car industry but was one of principle on the connection between industrial policy and environmental policy, between economy and ecology. You will of course be aware of my viewpoint: we in Europe have to set the highest standards. However, it makes no sense to run so far ahead of things that industry migrates away and we begin to export pollution and, as a result, import unemployment. These remarks were not related in any way to the car industry. There I fully share your view that we not only have the opportunity, but also the obligation, to establish Europe permanently as the lead market for environmentally-friendly cars.
As I now have the floor I would like to point something out to Mrs Corbey: it is not correct to assert that the Chinese are building cars that are more environmentally friendly than those made in Europe and that these are now flooding the European market in their millions. The few hundred Chinese cars that are currently to be found in Europe are of extremely dubious quality, not exclusively but also from an environmental viewpoint. The same can be said for the people’s car, the Tata, that is now being manufactured in India. If you relate the weight of these vehicles to their fuel consumption you will see that their performance is significantly worse than that of the cars currently being built in Europe.
The same applies to the US: it is now quite unrealistic to make the accusation that American cars are more environmentally friendly than European ones. If you think about it for just a moment you will soon come to the conclusion that this cannot be true. When it comes to modern technology, the only working hydrogen-powered cars in the world are to be found in Europe. Nobody else is spending more on research in this area than we are.
I would like to close with a thought that will perhaps unite us all: I am able to remain quite composed throughout this entire debate for I really do believe that we are on the right road, because I know that the European car manufacturers and, more importantly, the European automotive suppliers – for they really are the driving force behind European industry – have not been asleep in recent years but have been working on a whole series of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to achieve our objectives.
Mr Turmes, you are perfectly correct and I would have been happy to support such a proposal: the industry would be delighted – and so would I as the Commissioner responsible for industry – if we could now say what the next stage in the process should be. This is precisely what we have set out in CARS 21, namely a long-term, stable and predictable regulatory framework. This can be as ambitious as possible provided that it is long term and provided it is stable."@en1
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