"A fair transition mechanism is needed at European level for regions that depend on the automotive industry to manage change in this sector, to ensure that the new sustainable mobility system based on alternative fuels is affordable and accessible to all citizens and that no region is left behind." Adrian Teban made these remarks when presenting the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) opinion on 'Towards zero emission road transport: Deploying alternative fuels infrastructure and strengthening CO2 emission performance standards.' During a plenary session chaired by Markku Markkula, President of the Helsinki Region.
Teban, who serves as Mayor of Cugir, outlined that phasing-out of combustion engine cars will influence the automotive industry, which will undergo a fundamental cross-cutting transformation process. “This transition will affect the production process of the car companies but also the automotive suppliers. It will affect the workforce through the need for re-skilling in the light of the green and digital transition. It will affect the need for energy and clean energy production. It will therefore affect all regions with a link to the automotive industry, a sector which accounts for almost six million jobs in the core automotive and adjacent supply chains.”
In this regard the rapporteur proposed a European Mechanism for a just transition of the automotive sector and regions which needs to be inclusive for the whole automotive sector and needs to be based on data that clearly maps the territorial impact of the legislation. He called for the transition Mechanism to be based on the following principles:
- a) Adequate resources
- b) Policy support and exchanges of best practices
- c) Transition planning and social dialogue.
His opinion stresses that such mechanism needs to provide targeted funding for regions through existing European funds and make sure it addresses challenges in the regions most affected by the transformation reaching all SMEs in the supply chain to adapt to the changes in the automotive value chain. With respect to the needed up-skilling and retraining, the rapporteur called for investments in vocational and high-tech education required for the new skills in electric mobility to be made available for the local level.
The rapporteur tabled various other amendments to EU proposed regulations. He called for low-emission vehicles and fuels like advanced bio-fuels to be considered in regions where zero-emission electric vehicles are hard to deploy. He therefore called on such vehicles not be excluded from the single market from 2035 onward. He further underlined that from a regional perspective, various ranges of technical solutions must be considered such as hydrogen, synthetic bio-fuels or bio-gas solutions which could address in the short and medium term CO2 emissions from the transport sector.
The opinion also underlines the problem of second-hand car markets of polluting cars in Eastern and Central European Member States, shifting the toxic pollution and 'carbon leakage' problems to less-developed regions. With respect to infrastructure, the rapporteur called for more public charging points in urban areas as electric vehicles with no access to private parking will be on the rise. He also called for an adequate number of public charging points in remote and rural areas.