Ruling leaves legal basis for green car rules in doubt

The European Union's planned vehicle emission standards could be under threat of further delays after the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee raised questions over the legality of the current proposals.

The new rules, which would require car makers to cut average CO2 emissions to 130g/km by 2013, have been proposed under Article 95 of the EC Treaty covering single market issues.

However, last week the Legal Affairs Committee issued an opinion claiming the proper legal basis for the new rules is Article 175, which deals with environmental laws.

The European Parliament's Environment Committee is expected to vote in the next few weeks on whether to proceed with the legislation in its current guise or introduce it under Article 175. However, experts warned that either decision could be extremely problematic and potentially lead to further delays in the controversial standards.

"Potentially this is a huge issue," said Jay Nagley of environmental advisory web site cleangreencars.co.uk. " The legal opinion means that it is easy to imagine that any member state or company that does not like the final version of the legislation would be in a strong position to appeal against it… the whole package of measures could start unravelling."

He added that were the Parliament to reposition the legislation under Article 175 there would be a risk that different countries would be free to introduce different carbon standards.

"The reason they tried to force it through under single market rules was that was the only way to ensure all countries had the same targets," explained Nagley. "Under environment rules each country could set different levels and while countries like the UK and France would probably stick with tough standards, the German car industry has been lobbying hard against the current rules and the government there would be under real pressure to lower the targets."

Some car manufacturers are now expected to seize on the opinion as a means of further delaying the final implementation of the new rules. "The German car firms know that CO2 has to come down, and to be fair to them they are working towards that," observed Nagley. "Their issue is with the timelines. They know that if they can get the targets delayed to 2015 the improvements they are making mean they could probably be able to comply anyway and never have to pay any penalties."

A spokesman for the European Parliament admitted that were the Parliament to use the wrong legal basis for the regulations it could be subject to legal challenges. But he added that it was committed to selecting the right Article under which to enact the legislation and could change the current proposals without the need for any further delays if the Environment Committee does recommend that it is introduced as an environmental rule.