Umweltfreundliche Fahrzeuge: Europaabgeordnete unterstützen ehrgeizigere Pläne[en] 

MEPs want to make it compulsory for public authorities to consider not only the purchase price of buses, garbage lorries or delivery vans when acquiring them, but also their environmental impacts. The additional criteria would include life-cycle costs for fuel consumption, CO2 emissions and air pollution and would enter into force as early as January 2010. 

This is two years earlier than what the Commission is proposing, but it is more in line with the general approach approved by member states last week, which would allow authorities two years to comply as of the directive's entry into force. 

The Environment Committee also said the cost of CO2 should be calculated at a minimum of €30 per tonne, rather than at €20 as proposed by the Commission (EurActiv 20/12/07). 

The aim is to kick-start a market in technologies that are currently not commercially viable, such as biofuels, hydrogen, natural gas or LPG, electric or hybrid vehicles. 

The new plans would cover all new road vehicles, except – according to an amendment introduced by MEPs – second-hand vehicles, emergency vehicles and those used to provide "operational support" or maintain infrastructure. 

The committee nevertheless said the criteria should be taken into account when public authorities purchase replacement parts or engines for retrofitting on older vehicles. 

MEPs also called on the Commission to establish a scoreboard for benchmarking similar cities and comparing the environment-friendliness of their procurement practices. Local, regional and national authorities that procure clean and energy-efficient vehicles accounting for at least 75% of their annual specific procurement needs would be allowed to use the label "clean and energy efficient urban road transport". 

The committee further asked the Commission to set up a "European Climate Protection Fund" to encourage the purchase of such vehicles. 

MEPs' approval is crucial for the plan to go through. Indeed, they had rejected a similar proposal in 2006, saying it was too weak. Indeed, it had only covered heavy-duty vehicles (buses and trucks of over 3.5 tonnes) and only required 25% of all such vehicles purchased or leased by public bodies to meet the environmental standards.

The new plans, on the other hand, are expected to affect the purchases of roughly 110,000 passenger cars, 110,000 light commercial vehicles, 35,000 lorries and 17,000 buses. 

According to Commission estimates, the inclusion of lifetime costs for fuel, CO2, NOx, non-methane hydrocarbons and particulate matter (PM) would push the price of a normal bus up from around €150,000 to €594,030 – meaning that it would become more interesting to pay a higher price up-front for a cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicle with lower fuel energy consumption and emissions.