VERONA – “We have the numbers to avoid the Euro 7 leap in the dark”. The Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Matteo Salvini, underlines that Italy has forged a series of ties with other European countries to get to stop the rules which provide for a crackdown on the levels of pollutants in cars by 2025. Last standard before the stop on the sale of cars with internal combustion engines in 2035 with the transition to electric, which must not be an imposition, but not even a taboo because “we have to close the gap with the rest of Europe”.
Italy has gathered the availability of France, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and Romania “to stop Euro 7”, explained Salvini in the opening event of Automotive Dealer Day 2023 in Verona, an appointment organized by Quintegia. And Germany? “It depends, relations with the German Minister of Transport are excellent,” replies Salvini. “We will see”. And then he adds: “It’s not a question of being a pro- or anti-pro-European, the Euro 7 standards are meaningless, even from an ecological point of view – he explained during the debate with the presidents of the car category associations – we are a block majority, we hope to become a majority. Also because it would not make sense to bring the standards into force in 2025, when the verification of the regulation on 2035 and the endothermic stop are expected in 2026. We must have the possibility to redesign choices that are wrong in terms of timing, methods and merits”.
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Be careful though. Salvini’s no to electricity is not ideological. On the contrary. He underlines that he travels in Rome with an electric car and does not want to demonize it, but it shouldn’t be the only way: “The electric car is one of the possibilities on which to focus for the future, but it is not the only one. We are for freedom of choice by citizens and businesses”. And in Verona, when the numbers of the pure electric market appear on the screen, 3.8% against 12.1% in Europe in the first quarter of 2023, and the data from the columns, which show how far Italy is behind others Countries, Salvini says we need to speed up. “This gap with the rest of the EU must be recovered”, he said when the Bev Italia index elaborated by Quintegia appeared: 46.7. Italy, compared to the 2030 targets, is at an average speed according to Tommaso Bortolomiol and Fabio Barbisan. Speed that will not allow the country to meet the deadlines.
Salvini’s joke brought a smile to Massimo Nordio, president of Motus-E, which brings together companies involved in the transition to electricity, and to Michele Crisci, number one of Unrae, the association of foreign companies. “We are working as a ministry to increase the number of columns and also for hydrogen refills. Obviously we need time, because saying “starting tomorrow everyone will use electricity only” means making a great gift to China and putting at risk the entire production sector in Italy”, added the minister who also opens the request to review the incentive system, a question posed by the vice president of Anfia, Marco Stella, and by the vice president of Federauto, Plinio Vanini. The dealers’ association which presented an organic proposal which would cost 6 billion and a return of 900,000 registered cars. Not only. Last year almost 300 million advanced from the incentives and those of 2023 continue not to work. “The tax credit for companies is an issue on the agenda – says Salvini – as well as the review of incentives”.
Speed limits, the Italians say yes to 150 km/h on the motorway
by Maurilio Rigo
After announcing that in some stretches of the motorway the speed limit could soon rise to 150 kilometers per hour, but only where the number of lanes is sufficient and the number of accidents is low, Salvini wants to adjust the speed of the practices, from driving licenses to vehicle inspections, from the Motor Vehicle offices. “It is not possible for some provincial offices to work and to give citizens answers it takes twenty days, while in other provinces it takes 365 days to give the same answers. It’s not good for either citizens or businesses.”
He returned to the question during the opening event of the Automotive Dealer Days, an opportunity to list what the ministry is doing for the sector and the entire supply chain. Over 6 thousand professionals gathered in Verona for the three days organized by Quintegia. Salvini also reiterated that he will put his hand to the highway code, “a now old code, dated 1992, when four and two-wheeled mobility and micro-mobility solutions that now exist were not even imagined”. And it is precisely in the revision of the code, which should lead to a bill of parliamentary initiative by the summer.