• Has the EU the authority to impose rules and regulations in Czech Republic?
The European Union uses various instruments to record European laws and regulations, to co-ordinate policies of member states or to advise Member States. Legal instruments can be divided into two categories, binding and non-binding legal instruments. Implementing legal instruments are covered by the binding instruments, but are included as a separate category.
Legal instruments are always addressed to parties. In most cases these are the EU Member States. In some cases, the EU is targeting individual or groups of legal entities. This can be an individual, organization or company, but also an individual member state, in our case Czech Republic.
The European Union chooses, per proposal, what legal instrument it wants to use. Separate and unique legal instruments are used for some policy areas as is agreed and established in the treaties.
All decisions that the EU takes must have a legal basis. The legal basis lies in the treaties or in previous EU regulations. Regulations are “immediately applicable and enforceable by law in all Member States. As good practice, Member States issue national legislation that defines the competent national authorities, inspection and sanctions on the subject matter” (ENHESA, 2014). The counterpart of EU-Regulation is EU-directive, which is “applicable to all Member States, sets certain aims, requirements and concrete results that must be achieved in every Member State and sets a process for it to be implemented by Member States. Further, national authorities must create or adapt their legislation to meet these aims by the date specified in each given Directive” (ENHESA, 2014). In practice, the “main difference between regulations and directives is that directives must be transposed into national law by Member States” (Bakker, 2014). As a result, the European Union can enforce rules (directives) and regulations upon the Czech Republic, .
• Is it the policy of the EU to support the promotion of environmentally-friendly cars?
The EU-commission, share concerns over “security of energy supply, climate change and health. This stimulates to seek alternative fuels, other than fossil fuels. Innovative vehicle propulsion systems offer long term sustainability. Three quarters of transport greenhouse emissions come from road transport (European Commission, 2018). Transport is especially vulnerable to oil supply disruption and price instability. Emissions of harmful pollutants, concerns over air quality and noise, especially in urban areas, persist. In 2016 “the Member States agreed on a further reduction of the emission ceilings for harmful substances” (Europa NU, 2018). Transport is an important building block in the EU energy-climate policy. Europe’s climate and energy package includes targets for 2020 for energy efficiency, a target minimum share for renewable energy and targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These cannot be reached without a significant contribution from transport. An increase of the development in innovative vehicle propulsion systems as such has recently been adopted by the European Council. The Green Cars Initiative, as part of the European Economic Recovery Plan, is aimed to support the development of new and sustainable forms of road transport.
The Commission supports three main alternative types of fuels and propulsion technologies, namely: Biofuels, (liquid or gaseous), hydrogen and fuel cells followed by battery electric and hybrid electric vehicles with plug-in (European Commission, 2018), aiming to reach their environmental protection goal in 2020 (European Environment Agency, 2016).
• What does this imply for the development and sale of electric cars?
The Directive 2014/94/EU and Regulations 1291/2013 have been the incentive to explore and innovate alternative types of fuels and propulsion technologies. The e-car innovations and developments have increased, yet the sales of these vehicles are cautious. The main reason for this is that market entry barriers need to dissolve in Czech Republic. However, ”once the prices of the cars go down and their performance will get better, which is expected. The market could then jump relatively quickly” (Johnstone, 2017). Still, Czech Republic has to
“The European Institutions should lead on the revisions of relevant EU policy. The MS should take any opportunities to revise relevant national policy and this could include the forthcoming provision of national policy frameworks for alternative fuels development under the Directive 2014/94/EU. Specifically there is a need for: Transparent publication of national plans as soon as possible; Mutual information sharing between the MS and the EU, Stringent implementation of existing policy including both the EU Clean Vehicle Directive and the Alternative Fuels Directive and existing national, regional and local policy is needed to encourage alternative fuels uptake” (Wainwright, 2017, p. 7).
Directive 2014/94/EU expects national authorities to be transparent in their national plans and share mutual information between MS and EU. In addition it expects strict implementation of existing policy in regard to the EU Clean Vehicle Directive and the Alternative Fuels Directive and existing national, regional and local policy, which is required to encourage alternative fuels acceptance (Wainwright, 2017).