Debate: Sustainable maritime fuels  - Deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure
Date: MONDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2022
Speaker: Ismail Ertug
Country: Portugal
Language: EN

Within this legislation – I think it goes without saying – we have to decarbonise, in particular, the transport sector, and we see that individual transport as well as heavy—goods transport are still emitting very high emissions. Alternative and sustainable fuels are key to decarbonising and, in order to do so, we definitely need to overcome the bottleneck which is and which was for a long time the infrastructure. Therefore, dear colleagues, we have to fast roll out the infrastructure for alternative fuels. Just let me go one step back in near history: in 2013, the European Commission already came up with legislation called AFID, the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive, at that time, and this previous legislation was totally destroyed – I have to say that in these words – by the Member States, by the Council. If they had not completely undermined the legislation at that time, we would have had 677 000 charging stations across the European Union by the end of 2020. And even now, October 2022, we have, I would say, only 377 000 charging stations. Therefore, it was high time that the European Commission submitted the AFIR Regulation within the Fit for 55 package. Two weeks ago, here, exactly at that place, we voted in the Transport Committee overwhelmingly with a majority for this report – 36 yes to no, and I clearly say charging must be as simple as filling up petrol if we want to make a success story out of it. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to thank all my shadow colleagues from all the other groups. I guess we have now achieved strong and progressive elements. We have achieved charging stations every 60 kilometres, which will be obligatory until the end of 2025. We have also put in higher power output for light—duty vehicles, for heavy—duty vehicles and, in particular, for hydrogen infrastructure. We have also put more ambition into the hydrogen targets: refuelling hydrogen stations every 100 kilometre until the end of 2027. We have also put into this legal regulation obligatory card payments on charging stations. We have included the electrification of and hydrogen for rail modes. On—shore power supply for ships until the end of 2030 and shoreside electricity for aircrafts until the end of 2025. We have also incorporated exemptions for outer regions and included data provisions which make user information easier. I proposed a European access point, which will also be established within this regulation. Now, hopefully, we will get the support from Members of Parliament on Wednesday at noon. But still one remaining issue is open and for this, I want to ask for your support, dear colleagues, and it is the sanction mechanism. I just want to tell you frankly that this sanction mechanism has nothing to do with ideology. It’s just a tool to push the Member States towards the implementation of this regulation. Article 19(a) just says that the Member States need to implement a penalty mechanism for those charge point operators who don’t comply with the legislation. Full stop. We also included a recital stating that the European Commission will be demanded to fine Member States EUR 1 000 per non—installed charging station. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, we have worked now, I would say, for a year and a half, extremely, extremely on this dossier, with all my colleagues on the different reports and the different committees. We had more than 1 000 amendments. We clustered all these amendments into different topics. We have put them all together. We made out of this more than 1 000 amendments, 18 compromise amendments, and we brought 17 of them through, two weeks ago within the Transport Committee. Now it’s up to us to take the next step. The next step is to vote for it in this House, and then we have to go to the trilogues, where we already have fixed two dates for trilogues with the Czech Presidency. I think we did our utmost as European Parliamentarians. Now it’s up to you to vote and to follow my and our line. I’m really optimistic that this will be the starting point of a new European era where we can install infrastructure for alternative fuels, alternative technology. Once again, no Green Deal without new technologies.