Parliament and the Council EU have reached an agreement on the alternative fuel use in the field of the transports



Yesterday the Parliament and the Council of the European Union have reached an informal agreement on the measures in order to increase the alternative fuel use in the field of the transports and to guarantee that the European territory is covered by a sufficient net of stations of refueling and of recharges in order to allow to automobiles, truck and ships that freely use alternative fuels as the natural gas and the electric power of circular on the roads and the European marine routes.

The specific new norms of the directive of the EU, whose objective is to reduce the dependency of the field of the transports from the oil and to mitigate its impact on the climate, will impose to the Member States to develop a necessary infrastructure net for alternative fuels and to elaborate plans that they include a sufficient number of stations of it recharges and of refueling. In particular, the national plans and objectives will have to guarantee that the cars electrical workers and the fed vehicles to methane freely can circular in the cities and in urban areas within the end of 2020; that the trucks and the other vehicles that use liquified natural gas and methane can travel freely along the roads of the central net of the infrastructural net TRY of the EU within the end of 2025, than the ships fed to gas can navigate between the marine ports of the net IT TRY within the end of 2025 and that they can navigate on the net of water internal ways of net TEN- T within the end of 2030. The States EU that will opt to include stations of hydrogen refueling in their national plans will have to guarantee the presence of a sufficient number of such stations to the aim to assure the regular circulation within 2025. The national plans will not have to involve eventual additional costs to the budgets of the Member States, but they could include incentives and political measures as for example which afforded of construction, afforded of parking and concessions for the refueling stations.

Remembering that, if confirmed from the commission Transports and the plenary session of the European Parliament, the directive could be adopted also before the European elections and perfected under the Greek presidency, Isabelle Ryckbost, general secretary of the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) has expressed the satisfaction of the association for the attainment of this agreement. "Now - it has explained - the European ports and the interested parts have a clear vision of what it expects to us from they and can start or continue to work towards this objective. The obligations previewed from the directive imply for the Harbour Authorities and the harbour industry some investments and activity of planning. We are convinced that the directive, with the financing opportunities that will be offered by the next invitations to introduce proposed for the TEN- T, will stimulate in realistic way more uses it of cleaned fuels in the marine transport. We believe moreover that many ports will not wait for 2025 in order to fulfill to the obligations of the directive".

ESPO has remembered that they are the two elements of the directive that interest the ports. First it is the supply of electric power to the ships, than in the ports they will have to be able to connect to the net terrestrial electrical worker. Such supply of electricity earth will have to be guaranteed of first call in the ports of central net TEN- T and in other ports within on December 31, 2025, unless not there is question and the costs are disproportionate regarding the benefits, included those environmental ones. The second is represented by the predisposition in the ports of stations of natural gas refueling which liquified in the ports in order to guarantee some uses it to the ships that can be fed with this fuel. The directive previews that there is an adequate number of stations of refueling of GNL in the ports of Core Network IT TRY within on December 31, 2025.