car manufacturing

Monday's „grilling“ by MEPs of Apostolos Tzitzikostas, Greece's candidate for European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, showed that the European car industry will not get support from him to postpone the emission targets for next year. Tzitzikostas also wants to maintain the line of banning the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles from 2035. Filip Křenek, project coordinator and analyst at EUROPEUM Institute, commented for Ekonomický deník.

The Czech car industry is lagging behind the rest of Europe and the world. It may not be able to pick what to produce, but it has the opportunity to strengthen its competitiveness and resilience. However, it needs trained and educated employees, which are hard to find on the local labour market. So are we going to train the automotive workforce, strengthen the position of our strategic sector and promote a just transformation? Or are we going to continue to say that the transition to electric mobility does not concern us and that the Green Deal for Europe is to blame for increased unemployment? How to produce electric cars and remain competitive? Rebeka Hengalová, a researcher at EUROPEUM Institute, discusses this topic in her article for economic daily Hospodářské noviny.