IG Metall is not very enthusiastic about the EU Commission’s proposal for the regulation of pollutants in commercial vehicles (Euro 7). In a position paper, the Commission’s approaches are described as “unsuccessful” and “well-intentioned but poorly done“, and the Commission’s proposal “lacks a view of the big picture in the commercial vehicle sector”. The IG Metall position paper was co-authored by Michael Brecht, Chairman of the General Works Council at Daimler Truck, the world market leader in the production of commercial vehicles. Markus Grabitz spoke with him.
After the EU presented ambitious climate targets in recent years, 2023 will be a year of implementation. But a few negotiations on climate legislation are still to come this year. Lukas Scheid knows the details.
Last summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy complained about the delay in the disbursement of billions of euros in EU financial aid to his country. Now there is much to suggest that the disbursements will be made more quickly: After talks with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the first tranche of the EU’s financial aid is expected in January.
IG Metall has massive objections to the EU Commission’s proposal for the regulation of pollutants in commercial vehicles (Euro 7). “The approach presented by the Commission on Nov. 10 is unsuccessful,” states a position paper by IG Metall on Euro 7, which is available to Europe.Table. The union calls on the co-legislators at EU level, i.e., the European Parliament and the member states, to fundamentally change the Commission’s Euro 7 proposal: “In the area of trucks, the Commission’s Euro 7 proposal urgently needs to be adapted in the further process.”
Michael Brecht, head of the General Works Council at Daimler Truck, helped draft the position paper. Speaking to Europe.Table, Brecht says: “The Commission’s proposal fails to look at the big picture in the commercial vehicle sector.” Daimler Truck is the world market leader in the production of commercial vehicles.
Brecht criticizes the fact that, in the case of commercial vehicles, the proposal for regulating pollutants was presented first, before the Commission would decide on fleet limits and an end date for the internal combustion engine in the spring. Brecht: “The EU should first set the course for commercial vehicles to be CO2-free as soon as possible.” Only when the roadmap for e-drives and fuel cells is in place should policymakers worry about pollutant emissions.
According to IG Metall, the introduction of zero-emission vehicles in European freight transport fleets is one of the most important and biggest levers of climate protection in transport because trucks and road haulage cause around one-third of CO2 emissions from road transport. This sector could therefore become one of the great success stories of climate-friendly technology – provided the framework conditions are right, as the position paper states. The top priority of German and European policymakers should now be the rapid development of a truck charging network, a raw materials strategy for electromobility, and the establishment of German and European battery production, including cell manufacturing.
In this context, Brecht considers the Euro 7 proposal to be misguided: “Internal combustion technology, which is being phased out anyway, is now to be overloaded yet again with technically very complex pollutant standards.” The Commission proposes to reduce the limits for nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and nitrous oxide by 80 to 95 percent. “Achieving these limits would require an investment disproportionate to the improvement in air quality,” Brecht added. Euro 7 legislation would be counterproductive to the transformation: “Investments would be required at a level that would hinder the rapid transition to alternative powertrains.” For Brecht, it’s clear: “If we want to achieve a CO2 effect quickly, the best step would be to ban Euro 4 vehicles.”
The trade unionist is committed to transformation and meeting climate targets in the transport sector: “There are already series-produced battery-electric trucks, and hydrogen-powered vehicles will soon be ready for series production.” But if Euro 7 came about in this way, a high level of engineering capacity would be diverted away from the new technologies and the drive transformation in the truck sector would be delayed. Brecht: “That cannot be in the interest of the Commission’s climate policy goals.” There was a threat of disadvantages in global competition: “In addition, the leading role of European industry in the topic of climate-neutral commercial vehicles would be massively endangered by this distraction.” There is certainly room for improvement in the exhaust gas purification of commercial vehicles that can be achieved with reasonable investment funds.
Brecht also warns the EU that future technologies could migrate: “Climate-friendly mobility needs clean trucks, and these should also be built in Europe.” Against the backdrop of “increasingly intense global competition,” Europe should not make life unnecessarily difficult for the industry with “well-intentioned but poorly executed regulation”.
Brecht calls on the Commission to revise the rules for EU funding of industries. He says that Baden-Württemberg, as an automotive location, currently has no chance of receiving EU funds for transformation because the southwest is still in good economic shape. Brecht asks, “Does the southwest first have to decline and become economically structurally weak before subsidies can flow? That can’t be it.”
At present, he said, it is foreseeable that the first battery factories for e-trucks will not be built in Europe, but in the USA.“In the US, the funding pots are fuller, the funding decision is issued more quickly, and there is no debate about structurally weak, structurally poor.” Brecht warns, “We need a unified European industrial policy to preserve our unique industrial substance.”
The years of great climate ambitions are over for the time being. In its program, the Swedish Council Presidency, therefore, emphasizes, above all, the implementation of existing climate targets. The aim is to put Fit for 55 into practice and accelerate the energy transition, according to a statement from Stockholm.
However, a few negotiations on climate legislation are still open in 2023 and will be on the desks of the Swedes in the coming months:
Accordingly, the Commission’s work program for 2023 on the Green Deal also looks rather meager. Planned are:
The Commission’s Green Claims proposal is not in the 2023 work program. It was supposed to have been submitted at the end of last year but was postponed. With the new law, the Commission wants to make advertising with environmental claims more specific and easier to verify in order to prevent greenwashing by companies.
During COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, the EU was said to be adjusting its climate change target (NDC) deposited with the UN in line with the outcome of the Fit for 55 trilogues. Now that the main trilogues on potential emissions savings and renewable expansion pathways have been completed, the European NDC can be updated.
However, it remains to be seen whether the member states will actually agree to increase the 55 percent target for 2030. Two percentage points more due to the higher LULUCF targets are being discussed. However, Timmermans already said in Sharm el-Sheikh that this would not require a new climate target, as the current one states that the aim is to reduce emissions by “at least” 55 percent. It would, therefore, be possible to simply update the annex to the NDC, which must explain how countries intend to achieve their climate targets.
Finally, the texts already adopted will be submitted to the Council and Parliament for a final vote. Adoption of a trilogue result is generally regarded as a formality, but in the case of the ETS reform, in particular, there were still doubts among the member states and in Parliament as recently as December as to whether the compromises of the jumbo trilogue would go through. The first Environment Council and the first plenary session in 2023 will provide information on whether the doubts are great enough.
All too often in Germany, the word “exit” is still associated with an entrepreneurial “end”. But the opposite is true: For start-ups, an exit is a step into the next development phase. Especially by way of an Initial Public Offering (IPO), start-ups can not only mobilize important growth capital, but also put their entrepreneurial independence on a new footing. However, IPOs account for only eight percent of all exits in Germany – but achieve 25 percent of the total exit volume.
IPOs also have a pull effect on early-stage financing. Put simply, the better the exit conditions, the more attractive the investment environment overall. IPOs indirectly boost the development dynamics of start-ups and contribute to the transformation of the economy.
And this is where the EU Commission’s proposals for the Listing Act come in. These are part of the European Commission’s package to increase the attractiveness of the EU capital markets, which aims, among other things, to improve exit conditions. The proposed measures are intended to reduce the excessive regulatory burden on issuers in the pre- and post-IPO phase, make the documentation and disclosure requirements applicable to primary and secondary markets more efficient, reinforce research and analyst coverage of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and allow flexibility in the distribution of voting rights.
Specifically, the EU Listing Act includes the following proposals:
These proposals are a good start to establishing or expanding the European capital market ecosystem. Many concerns and recommendations of market participants (issuers, exchanges, investors) have been taken on board. It is encouraging that the measures will create a uniform legal basis in many areas, which will allow and encourage flexible structuring at member state level. Examples include minimum market capitalization, standardization and simplification of prospectus requirements (prospectus types and scope, language regime, etc.) and free float rules for shares.
What is missing are elements that would further strengthen the European capital market – tax incentives for investments in equity, an up-to-date SME definition, and a uniform and common treatment of primary and secondary markets (MiFIR-Refit).
Specifically, the following aspects could provide a solution to this:
With the right framework conditions, we enable more German and European (start-up) companies to go public in their home market. If we want to promote the EU’s independence, if dependence on individual economic areas is to be reduced, then we need strong European companies and a strong European capital market.
The European Commission’s proposals are a first step in this direction, but not yet enough. It is to be hoped that Germany will drive forward the right solutions here with its own proposals for the Future Financing Act and the further implementation of the start-up strategy. This also includes bringing in proposals that are lacking at the European level. Don’t wait for Europe, but actively shape Europe – that is the motto of the hour.
IG Metall is not very enthusiastic about the EU Commission’s proposal for the regulation of pollutants in commercial vehicles (Euro 7). In a position paper, the Commission’s approaches are described as “unsuccessful” and “well-intentioned but poorly done“, and the Commission’s proposal “lacks a view of the big picture in the commercial vehicle sector”. The IG Metall position paper was co-authored by Michael Brecht, Chairman of the General Works Council at Daimler Truck, the world market leader in the production of commercial vehicles. Markus Grabitz spoke with him.
After the EU presented ambitious climate targets in recent years, 2023 will be a year of implementation. But a few negotiations on climate legislation are still to come this year. Lukas Scheid knows the details.
Last summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy complained about the delay in the disbursement of billions of euros in EU financial aid to his country. Now there is much to suggest that the disbursements will be made more quickly: After talks with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the first tranche of the EU’s financial aid is expected in January.
IG Metall has massive objections to the EU Commission’s proposal for the regulation of pollutants in commercial vehicles (Euro 7). “The approach presented by the Commission on Nov. 10 is unsuccessful,” states a position paper by IG Metall on Euro 7, which is available to Europe.Table. The union calls on the co-legislators at EU level, i.e., the European Parliament and the member states, to fundamentally change the Commission’s Euro 7 proposal: “In the area of trucks, the Commission’s Euro 7 proposal urgently needs to be adapted in the further process.”
Michael Brecht, head of the General Works Council at Daimler Truck, helped draft the position paper. Speaking to Europe.Table, Brecht says: “The Commission’s proposal fails to look at the big picture in the commercial vehicle sector.” Daimler Truck is the world market leader in the production of commercial vehicles.
Brecht criticizes the fact that, in the case of commercial vehicles, the proposal for regulating pollutants was presented first, before the Commission would decide on fleet limits and an end date for the internal combustion engine in the spring. Brecht: “The EU should first set the course for commercial vehicles to be CO2-free as soon as possible.” Only when the roadmap for e-drives and fuel cells is in place should policymakers worry about pollutant emissions.
According to IG Metall, the introduction of zero-emission vehicles in European freight transport fleets is one of the most important and biggest levers of climate protection in transport because trucks and road haulage cause around one-third of CO2 emissions from road transport. This sector could therefore become one of the great success stories of climate-friendly technology – provided the framework conditions are right, as the position paper states. The top priority of German and European policymakers should now be the rapid development of a truck charging network, a raw materials strategy for electromobility, and the establishment of German and European battery production, including cell manufacturing.
In this context, Brecht considers the Euro 7 proposal to be misguided: “Internal combustion technology, which is being phased out anyway, is now to be overloaded yet again with technically very complex pollutant standards.” The Commission proposes to reduce the limits for nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and nitrous oxide by 80 to 95 percent. “Achieving these limits would require an investment disproportionate to the improvement in air quality,” Brecht added. Euro 7 legislation would be counterproductive to the transformation: “Investments would be required at a level that would hinder the rapid transition to alternative powertrains.” For Brecht, it’s clear: “If we want to achieve a CO2 effect quickly, the best step would be to ban Euro 4 vehicles.”
The trade unionist is committed to transformation and meeting climate targets in the transport sector: “There are already series-produced battery-electric trucks, and hydrogen-powered vehicles will soon be ready for series production.” But if Euro 7 came about in this way, a high level of engineering capacity would be diverted away from the new technologies and the drive transformation in the truck sector would be delayed. Brecht: “That cannot be in the interest of the Commission’s climate policy goals.” There was a threat of disadvantages in global competition: “In addition, the leading role of European industry in the topic of climate-neutral commercial vehicles would be massively endangered by this distraction.” There is certainly room for improvement in the exhaust gas purification of commercial vehicles that can be achieved with reasonable investment funds.
Brecht also warns the EU that future technologies could migrate: “Climate-friendly mobility needs clean trucks, and these should also be built in Europe.” Against the backdrop of “increasingly intense global competition,” Europe should not make life unnecessarily difficult for the industry with “well-intentioned but poorly executed regulation”.
Brecht calls on the Commission to revise the rules for EU funding of industries. He says that Baden-Württemberg, as an automotive location, currently has no chance of receiving EU funds for transformation because the southwest is still in good economic shape. Brecht asks, “Does the southwest first have to decline and become economically structurally weak before subsidies can flow? That can’t be it.”
At present, he said, it is foreseeable that the first battery factories for e-trucks will not be built in Europe, but in the USA.“In the US, the funding pots are fuller, the funding decision is issued more quickly, and there is no debate about structurally weak, structurally poor.” Brecht warns, “We need a unified European industrial policy to preserve our unique industrial substance.”
The years of great climate ambitions are over for the time being. In its program, the Swedish Council Presidency, therefore, emphasizes, above all, the implementation of existing climate targets. The aim is to put Fit for 55 into practice and accelerate the energy transition, according to a statement from Stockholm.
However, a few negotiations on climate legislation are still open in 2023 and will be on the desks of the Swedes in the coming months:
Accordingly, the Commission’s work program for 2023 on the Green Deal also looks rather meager. Planned are:
The Commission’s Green Claims proposal is not in the 2023 work program. It was supposed to have been submitted at the end of last year but was postponed. With the new law, the Commission wants to make advertising with environmental claims more specific and easier to verify in order to prevent greenwashing by companies.
During COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, the EU was said to be adjusting its climate change target (NDC) deposited with the UN in line with the outcome of the Fit for 55 trilogues. Now that the main trilogues on potential emissions savings and renewable expansion pathways have been completed, the European NDC can be updated.
However, it remains to be seen whether the member states will actually agree to increase the 55 percent target for 2030. Two percentage points more due to the higher LULUCF targets are being discussed. However, Timmermans already said in Sharm el-Sheikh that this would not require a new climate target, as the current one states that the aim is to reduce emissions by “at least” 55 percent. It would, therefore, be possible to simply update the annex to the NDC, which must explain how countries intend to achieve their climate targets.
Finally, the texts already adopted will be submitted to the Council and Parliament for a final vote. Adoption of a trilogue result is generally regarded as a formality, but in the case of the ETS reform, in particular, there were still doubts among the member states and in Parliament as recently as December as to whether the compromises of the jumbo trilogue would go through. The first Environment Council and the first plenary session in 2023 will provide information on whether the doubts are great enough.
All too often in Germany, the word “exit” is still associated with an entrepreneurial “end”. But the opposite is true: For start-ups, an exit is a step into the next development phase. Especially by way of an Initial Public Offering (IPO), start-ups can not only mobilize important growth capital, but also put their entrepreneurial independence on a new footing. However, IPOs account for only eight percent of all exits in Germany – but achieve 25 percent of the total exit volume.
IPOs also have a pull effect on early-stage financing. Put simply, the better the exit conditions, the more attractive the investment environment overall. IPOs indirectly boost the development dynamics of start-ups and contribute to the transformation of the economy.
And this is where the EU Commission’s proposals for the Listing Act come in. These are part of the European Commission’s package to increase the attractiveness of the EU capital markets, which aims, among other things, to improve exit conditions. The proposed measures are intended to reduce the excessive regulatory burden on issuers in the pre- and post-IPO phase, make the documentation and disclosure requirements applicable to primary and secondary markets more efficient, reinforce research and analyst coverage of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and allow flexibility in the distribution of voting rights.
Specifically, the EU Listing Act includes the following proposals:
These proposals are a good start to establishing or expanding the European capital market ecosystem. Many concerns and recommendations of market participants (issuers, exchanges, investors) have been taken on board. It is encouraging that the measures will create a uniform legal basis in many areas, which will allow and encourage flexible structuring at member state level. Examples include minimum market capitalization, standardization and simplification of prospectus requirements (prospectus types and scope, language regime, etc.) and free float rules for shares.
What is missing are elements that would further strengthen the European capital market – tax incentives for investments in equity, an up-to-date SME definition, and a uniform and common treatment of primary and secondary markets (MiFIR-Refit).
Specifically, the following aspects could provide a solution to this:
With the right framework conditions, we enable more German and European (start-up) companies to go public in their home market. If we want to promote the EU’s independence, if dependence on individual economic areas is to be reduced, then we need strong European companies and a strong European capital market.
The European Commission’s proposals are a first step in this direction, but not yet enough. It is to be hoped that Germany will drive forward the right solutions here with its own proposals for the Future Financing Act and the further implementation of the start-up strategy. This also includes bringing in proposals that are lacking at the European level. Don’t wait for Europe, but actively shape Europe – that is the motto of the hour.
