mr president all of us with car factories in our countries or regions want to see their success but that should not blind us to the problems and the reality of overcapacity that curbs profits and investment
i am hugely impressed by the engineering excellence i see at plants in my region at ellesmere port and at halewood and on that basis alone they should prosper but i am deeply depressed by the attitude of the car industry as a whole over the ten years that i have seen it work while i have been in this parliament
judged against the potential for environmental improvement its record has been shameful
of course there are positive stories to be told
we see examples of innovation in our newspapers each day but the industry as a whole fought against the introduction of catalytic converters wildly exaggerating their cost
it made an agreement with us to reduce its co emissions and then reneged on it
currently it is trying to wriggle out of legal requirements that it uses air-conditioning coolants with a much lower global warming potential than those used at present and already it is lobbying to try and weaken the commission's proposals on co emissions from vans and light commercial vehicles
huge sums of money have been put into propping up this industry
i think we the public deserve a bit better
we hear from the component manufacturers that the car assemblers are too low in their ambitions
what we need is for the industry now to take a new attitude and the industry's representatives acea in particular
we need the industry to recognise that it has obligations to society as a whole and that its future is inextricably linked to environmental improvement
