France, Germany Say Car Emissions Talks Continue

SLOVENIA: April 14, 2008

BRDO - France and Germany are continuing talks on how to share between car makers an EU-proposed mandatory target on carbon emissions from cars, French and German government officials said on Saturday.

The head of Germany's VDA carmakers' lobby, Matthias Wissmann, said on Friday the talks were deadlocked, confirming unnamed German government officials.

But bilateral talks were continuing between France and Germany, said Germany's environment minister Sigmar Gabriel on the fringes of an April 11-12 informal environment ministers' meeting in Slovenia.

"Of course this continues. It would be crazy if we just wouldn't come together in environmental policy."

"We have to set ambitious goals for small and medium sized cars as well, not only for the big ones, that's about it. We want to have a decision during the (EU) French presidency (from July)."

He said he wanted compromise on the level of fines for non-compliance.

The EU executive Commission last December proposed a binding car emissions limit across Europe of an average 120 grams per kilometre across the fleet from 2012, compared to about 160 g/km now, after the car industry broke voluntary limits.

The French-German bilateral talks have dominated a debate on how to carve the target between manufacturers, with those in Germany wanting the burden to reflect the higher emissions of their heavier cars compared to those in France.

A senior French environment ministry official confirmed that talks were going on.

"Neither the Germans nor the French want a failure," said Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, secretary of state for ecology.

"There has been progress in bilateral talks since December. We are keen to find agreement in the French presidency in the second half of the year....At the moment there is no perfect convergence of position."

The European Parliament, responding to industry lobbying that the car production cycle was too long to adapt to the EU goal, has called for automakers to be given more time to cut emissions, reducing to 125 g/km in 2015 rather than 120 g/km in 2012.

Road transport is the EU's second biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions after electricity generation, accounting for about one fifth of total carbon emissions and rising rapidly, according to the EU Commission.

(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach; Writing by Gerard Wynn, Editing by David Christian-Edwards)