Published 1/16/2019 1:29:28 PM
PALMA DE MALLORCA, Jan. 16 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish Association of Manufacturers of Vehicles and Trucks (ANFAC) has denounced before the European Commission and before the Council for the Market Unit, under the Ministry of Economy and Enterprise, the Bill on Climate Change and Energy Transition of the Balearic Government that prohibits the circulation of combustion vehicles in the region.
As reported by the association in a statement, this rule, in an advanced stage of processing, includes the prohibition that they can circulate through the islands, as of 2025, diesel vehicles (cars and motorcycles) that circulate legally in the rest of Spain and of the European Union.
Going even further, from 2035, the circulation of cars, motorcycles, vans and vans powered by fossil fuels (diesel, gasoline, natural gas and any hybridization with traditional engines) will be prohibited. Only those already settled in the region can do so, regardless of their age.
No European citizen will be able to access these island territories with their combustion vehicle as of these dates. Neither the dealers based in the Islands can sell vehicles of new technologies as they can do the sites in the Peninsula, with the consequent economic impact.
The Association understands, in its writings addressed to these authorities, that these measures are “arbitrary, inidonous and disproportionate”, “are orphaned by any technical or scientific support” and suppose “a clear breach of European Union law”, as well as of the Spanish Law 20/2013 guaranteeing the market unit, in addition to being “unprecedented throughout Europe”.
The ban aims to “tackle an alleged problem of air quality,” the complaint states, when the air quality in the Islands is between good and excellent based on the Balearic Islands own Air Quality Report 2017.
“The ban flagrantly violates the freedom of movement of goods and people, the freedom to provide services, the European framework for the approval of motor vehicles, the procedures in the field of technical regulations and even, subsidiarily, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. to seriously affect the normal functioning of the market and affect in a harmful and damaging way the freedom of movement of goods, “they stated in the complaint.
PROCEDURE FOR INFRINGEMENT
For this reason, the Anfac has requested the European Commission to initiate proceedings for infringement of European Union Law and, in the event that the approval remains in force, to adopt precautionary measures consisting in the suspension of the prohibition.
In addition, the Market Unity Council has been asked to propose the adoption of necessary measures to prevent the entry into force of the ban.
According to the association, the Balearic Climate Change Bill proposes a circulation ban that goes “much further” than the framework proposals of the European Commission. The Commission’s approach, in this sense, “is committed to decarbonising the economy of the European Union from a broad point of view and with the contribution of all sectors.”
Thus, a series of measures are proposed that include investments in alternative technologies, “aid to the most affected sectors and increase and improvement of public transport networks”.
The European Union is committed to establishing a path towards decarbonisation in 2050 that includes “strategies of impulse and non-prohibitions”. European commissioners and parliamentarians have also expressed themselves, on several occasions, against the restrictive prohibitions, in the sense that “the reduction of emissions does not mean that the livelihoods of Europeans should be sacrificed”.
SERIOUS EFFECTS
Finally, from the Anfac have ensured that “the announcement of the processing of the bill has caused the market for the sale of new vehicles has a much slower pace in the Balearic Islands,” which has only grown by 1.6% in 2018 to the national average, which has done so by 7%.
“This measure supposes, in practice, a prohibition on the purchase of diesel vehicles since its entry into force because nobody in that Autonomous Community is going to acquire a vehicle in the midst of such uncertainty and even less a new diesel knowing that from January of 2025, it will not be able to circulate “, they have concluded.