Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), rapporteur and Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE) hold a press conference on alternative fuels infrastructure and sustainable maritime fuels, after the vote on the new rules on alternative fuels infrastructure, agreed by Council and Parliament negotiators in March 2023 which seek to expand the deployment of recharging or alternative refueling stations for cars, trucks or planes, to reduce emissions in the transport sector. The transcript is the result of an automated process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

WARBORN, Jörgen (EPP, SE)

VITANOV, Petar (S&D, BG)

Fit for 55 (T)

Press conference by Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), rapporteur and Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE) on alternative fuels infrastructure and sustainable maritime fuels

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/71304214/1688723033097_I243806Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, Thank you very much. Yeah. So my name is Jörgen WARBORN and I'm the rapporteur for fuel EU Maritime, which as you know, is part of the Fit for 55. And this will ensure that we decarbonise the maritime transport fuels. I am very proud to stand here today.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, We have been working with this file for almost two years and this of course marks the end of this years and we have truly negotiated a landmark legislation. It is by far the most comprehensive and ambitious bill to tackle the maritime emissions. This regulation, it builds on two pillars. The main one established that the greenhouse gas intensity limits should gradually reduced for maritime fuels.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, And this, of course, will force ship operators to to to change which what kind of fuels they utilise. The second pillar oblige ferries, cruise ships and container vessels to switch off their engines and connect to the electricity grid when moored in the main European ports. In combination, these measures will make sure that the maritime transport contributes to reaching our economy wide climate objectives of net zero in 2050.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, As I said, the agreement is very ambitious, but it is also realistic because there are several important aspects that we need to take into account. Climate of course, being one, but also social aspects and competitiveness of the export industry and of the maritime companies. So we have struck a balance in this agreement, a very good balance, I have to say.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, I want to underline the massive backing that we got for the trilogue agreement with 555 votes in favour, only 48 against and 25 abstentions. The fact that all political groups gave their support is the best proof for the quality of this compromise. Everyone understands that climate transition will cost money, but we can limit the cost and ensure value for money by choosing reasonable pace and keeping as many technological pathways as possible open.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, And this is what we have done with this legislation. We start very modest with the emission reductions and then we raise them more significantly only after 2035. This provides the sector with a clear sense of direction while giving it a reasonable timeframe and practical conditions to make the necessary investments in new fuel production facilities, in bunkering infrastructures, in developing new supply chains, and continuing the research.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, Through the gradual phase in, we also take into account the social and economic dimensions we give breathing space to the sector, thereby avoiding practical problems and short term price spikes for consumers. Of course, this is very important these days with record inflation that we work to protect families and businesses from excessive price increases.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, Let me also end with saying something about the international dimension, because we want this regulation to have a global impact and get the rest of the world moving as well. We have already seen a first promising step when the International Maritime Organisation met last week. It overcame years of stalemate and finally adopted an ambitious emissions reduction plan.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, Now we need to push for this to be translated into concrete and binding global fuel standards. And we, from the European Union, we have shown that it is possible and we have provided with this regulation a regulatory design that can be scaled up globally.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jörgen WARBORN (EPP, SE), Rapporteur, So building on the advancements in IMO last week and this united EU position, I think there will be a lot of possible positive development happenings in the maritime sector in the years to come. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 And now for more charging stations for cars. Mr. STANHOPE.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, Thank you. Thank you so much for this opportunity and thank you for being late. Now, I must admit that I'm not supposed to be here. I was not supposed to be here because indeed this the whole work of this dossier was taken by my colleague and my friend, Ismail Ertug, who's responsible for the final outcome of the AFIR negotiations, I would say.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, And it is easy to be here after all this job was done. So I would like to thank him for his enormous efforts to put together all the different perceptions and to have as an outcome a really good, I would say, regulation guaranteeing decarbonisation of the transport sector. Why is it important? If you want to decarbonise, then we need to facilitate the use each of different electric vehicles or vessels or aircrafts.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, But it goes, of course, hand in hand with the building of the necessary infrastructure that would guarantee this decarbonisation otherwise. And it should be, of course, geographically and systematically organised so that there are no ecological deserts within the leading among the member states.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, And that will guarantee that if we have the geographical balance that we can decarbonise together. And this is why it is important because then we can have basically electric vehicles not as a luxury but as a common vehicle. And we can guarantee by the existing infrastructure market penetration, which means affordability. And this is important. Now in terms of the negotiation process, I must say that the European Parliament managed to secure a lot of wins.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, I would point out just a few of them. I think I can start with the key missing element from the initial proposal of the Commission, and this is the the railway transportation, which we all agree that this is the transport of the future. Now with the final text, we have two articles concerning the railway alternative fuels, because especially in the situation when we don't have direct electrification and tackling this issue is really important.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, Then shifting from diesel locomotives to hydrogen or to battery use is really, really important. And with this legislation now the Member States are obliged to take measures and to assess the situation and to have different initiatives in terms of improving this sector. Of course, I would say the second victory is the significantly improved and strengthened provisions on the recharging infrastructure for light duty vehicles.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, A more rapid and more comprehensive deployments in in two directions. First, when it comes to power capacity, 30% increase from a one kilowatt per registered BEV to 1.3 and from 0.66 for plug-in hybrids to 0.8, which will give, I would say, additional torque for the deployment of this of this infrastructure. And of course, the second dimension is the distance.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, We have improved the... We created some sub targets that would I would say that would be helpful in perceiving the goal of this deployment. And of course with the increase of the targets, the light duty vehicles, we have similar situation in the heavy duty vehicles. Of course, we try to limit as to the minimum the LNG.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, We also envisage the hydrogen infrastructure of course, maybe linked to to the maritime sector. There are some things that concern the supply of offshore electricity for the maritime ports, with possible flexibilities and some possible derogations in terms of the capacity, in terms of the number and the nature of the ships.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, And maybe the third big victory is the, the transparency and the improvement in terms of payment is the consumers question how people are going to pay for the charging of their vehicles. So we have improved text which set different requirements for the operators of the of the stations concerning the way of payments.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, Those stations with over 50 kilowatts, they should introduce the card payments and of course they should also have a payment linked with the kilowatt hour for the the slow chargers. So we have the variety of options, kilowatt hours per minute, per session or for different other components. But generally I think this is an excellent job.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petar VITANOV (S&D, BG), Rapporteur, We have a lot of improvement of the initial text. We have a whole new chapter concerning the railway and I'm definitely eager because I represent one of those countries, that those infrastructure is far away from expected. So with this regulation we will have the common ground and we will have the target that would not us be again on the second speed of the European Union. So a thank you. And of course, they remain at your disposal for any further questions.

Q&A, Question regarding the possible investments in energy infrastructure as a result of this regulation. -