France to speed up adoption of battery regulation.
[Euractiv] France, currently at the helm of the EU Council presidency, hopes to make as much progress as possible on the battery regulation in the coming months.The batteries regulation could be adopted in 2022, according to its negotiators and in particular France, which has made it one of the priorities of its EU presidency.
For now, things appear to be going in the right direction, especially for the European Parliament, which wants the regulation to enter into force on 1 January 2027, six months earlier than first envisaged, as French MEP and chair of the European Parliament’s ENVI committee, Pascal Canfin, recently told EURACTIV.
MEPs of the environment committee (ENVI), adopted on 9 February a text on the battery regulation, which is mostly aligned with the European Commission’s initial proposal but calls for more demands to be made on certain objectives.
Simona Bonafè, the rapporteur for the Parliament’s proposal, said:
For the first time in European legislation, the battery regulation establishes a holistic framework of rules governing the entire life cycle of a product, from design to the end of its life.
In their report, MEPs call for a 70% increase of waste collection for portable batteries by 2025 instead of the 65% proposed by the Commission, as well as an 80% increase by 2030 compared to the EU executive’s 70%.
As for the minimum collection rates for batteries for light transport, MEPs want to aim for 75% by 2025 and 85% by 2030.
ENVI’s report is expected to be adopted in the Parliament’s plenary session in March. Negotiations will then begin between representatives of the EU governments.
A French priority
The objective first presented in the proposal was to establish standards “to ensure that only the most environmentally friendly, efficient and safe batteries are placed on the EU market”, as Maroš Šefčovič, European Commission vice-president and battery aficionado, said at the time.
Thierry Breton, Internal Market Commissioner also said that:
with the right investments and incentives – including today’s proposal for a new regulatory framework – we will be able to develop the complete battery value chain in the EU, from raw materials and chemicals to recycling and electromobility.
France intends to speed up the process.
French Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili presented her four priorities for the French EU presidency before the ENVI committee on 26 January. Promoting the circular economy was one of them, for which the battery regulation is a good example.
As a “symbol of our future ecological, economic and technological power”, the Battery Regulation should provide Europe with standards for battery production, from design to the end of life, but also strengthen the requirements for collection and recycling.
Barbara Pompili, said:
It is time to reach a conclusion as soon as possible, and if possible at the Environment Council in March.
“We will try to keep the timetable as ambitious as possible for this regulation.”
Industrialists also want the process to quickly move forward.
Benoît Lemaignan, co-founder of Verkor, a French battery manufacturer, has said:
The battery value chain must immediately integrate the need to produce locally.
“The sooner we start, the sooner we can assess the carbon footprint of batteries and the better for the industry. The battery regulation will help us take this into account and benefit our customers,” he added.
‘Factory Europe’
Speaking on 13 January on the theme of “a stronger industry for a more autonomous Europe”, Breton presented a “simple and pragmatic” roadmap for European industry.
He said he wanted “a ‘factory’ Europe that produces on its own soil, not only for its own needs but also to conquer world markets and to export”, and a Europe “that secures all its supply chains so as not to be at the mercy of what I call the geopolitics of value chains.”
In 2019 and 2020, a total of €120 billion of public and private money was invested in this field and 70 major battery projects, including more than 20 gigafactories, were announced or were being deployed, Breton said in his January speech.
In Sweden, the first gigafactory produced its first electric batteries for the automotive sector at the end of December.
Pascal Canfin, Parliament’s predicted in an interview with EURACTIV.
If all the planned gigafactories come to fruition, we will be the second-largest battery producer in the world in 2025, behind China, whereas five years ago, we were nowhere.
EU countries are already working towards this goal. Notably via Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), several EU countries, including France, are supporting manufacturers to develop a battery ecosystem, from raw materials to recycling.
With EU public funding of around €6 billion, 12 countries and 59 companies are involved in the process.
Raw materials
However, for the industry to be independent and offer environmentally-friendly batteries, Europe needs to invest in minerals – raw materials needed for battery production.
Mines will not only have to be opened on EU soil, but legislation will also need to be adopted to ensure these mines operate in a way that respects the environment and human rights.
According to a report submitted to the French government on 10 January, Europe will not be able to produce more than 30% of its needs in strategic minerals – lithium, cobalt, nickel – for electric batteries in 2030. The challenge is therefore to better regulate imports too.
Before that, however, mines in Europe should also be supervised. On this, France has already taken the lead as Pompili’s ministry has announced in particular “the translation of the concept of ‘responsible mining’ into a certifiable standard or label, in connection with the battery regulation currently being examined at the European level”.
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