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Czech Leader Demands Big Changes to EU Green Deal Over Cars

Czech Premier Calls for Major Changes to EU Green Deal Over Cars

The Czech Republic will demand major changes to the European Union’s plan to cut carbon emissions because the current proposal would damage its key automotive industry, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said.

A proposed ban on combustion engines by 2035 is “nonsense” and the leaders of member states will have a difficult debate about the climate package, Babis said in an online debate with opposition leaders before elections next month.

“I’m convinced that it needs to be significantly changed,” Babis said. “It’s destroying car producers, and we are against this proposal. The next government will have to deal with it because we can’t dictate to people what kind of cars they should buy.”

The proposal to ban combustion-engine cars next decade is part of the ambitious climate plan the EU rolled out in June to transform every corner of its economy. Now years of tough negotiations are expected before the bloc’s 27 members can turn the plan into reality.

The fight over electric vehicles has become a worry for the country of 10.7 million, where auto production makes up for more than a quarter of industrial output and employs almost 700,000 people directly and indirectly. 

It’s not the first time that Babis, a media, agriculture and chemicals mogul, has voiced concern over the EU’s carbon-reduction goals.

He has argued that it will threaten the competitiveness of the Czech Republic’s highly industrialized and heavily coal-using economy and has vowed to make the car industry issue a priority after it assumes the EU’s rotating presidency in the second half of 2022. 

Babis’s ANO party has made the issue central to its campaign before Oct. 8-9 elections. ANO leads opinion polls, having rebounded after its popularity plunged when the Czech Republic suffered one of the world’s most deadly Covid outbreaks as a portion of the population earlier this year.

The Czech premier also said that carbon credits should have fixed pricing and shouldn’t be traded as commodity on markets. 

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