I wanted to be the first to post in the new subforum; and I've been following the progress of the EU's automobile emissions legislation in an attempt to understand where EU law comes from, so I thought I'd regale you all with the latest news. Contrary to most expectations, the Parliament's environment committee has voted to keep the original strict limitations on car emissions - instead of the watered down version pushed by the car industry.

A bit of background for the vast majority of people who have no idea what's going on in Brussels. The European Commission, as part of its plan to reduce carbom emissions, propsed that all new cars produced in the EU would have to emit 130 g/km (0.46 lb/m) of CO2 or less by 2012. The car industry - especially in Germany where the changes would hit hardest - was up in arms; and Brussels has been swarming with lobbysits for car manufacturers and environmental groups since (well, more than usual).

Nobody expected the commission proposal to go through as is - the lobbysits put up a determined fight and had won over the French and German governments to draft a watered down compromise - which gave manufacturers an extra three years leeway and halved the fines they'd face for non-compliance.

The Socialist and Christian Democrat leaders, (together with the Greens and the Left if I'm understanding parliamentary documents properly), sat down and agreed on the compromise, which normally guarantees a bill smooth passage through the committees and parliament. In the environment committee, however, most (if not all)* of the Socialists voted against their party leadership and for the original commission proposal.

It's still a long way from being passed; as it still needs to go through the Parliament as a whole (and given that the business and industry committee voted for the amended version, I've no idea which text Parliament will be presented with) and win a qualified majority vote in the Council (made up of national governments) before being ratified by the Commission - but the environmental lobby has already been more successful than they were probably hoping for.

This has gone on a bit, so I'll stop - but what does anyone think? Are they abolishing millions of people's jobs and destroying European competitiveness, as the auto industry claim? Will it actually do any good?

Now to prepare for a barrage of 'liberal socialist global-warming alarmist European conspiracy' type posts.


*If anyone knows where I could actually find the voting records of committees I'd be grateful