Brussels Gives Truck Makers Room to Breathe on Climate Targets

The EU softens its near-term emissions rules for heavy vehicles, citing a charging network that has not kept pace with policy ambition.

The European Council formally adopted a targeted amendment to CO2 emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles on Monday, handing truck and bus manufacturers additional compliance flexibility ahead of the bloc's 2030 reduction targets, in a move that underscores the widening gap between Brussels' climate ambitions and the infrastructure needed to deliver them.

The amendment, part of the broader Automotive Package presented by the European Commission in December 2025, does not alter the long-term targets enshrined in EU law. Those require a 43% reduction in emissions from new heavy-duty vehicles by 2030, rising to 90% by 2040. What it does change is the mechanism by which manufacturers prove compliance, allowing them to accumulate more emission credits in the years leading up to 2030 and draw on those credits when the harder targets bite.

The measure applies specifically to heavy lorries above 16 tonnes and certain bus categories above 7.5 tonnes. Urban buses are excluded on the grounds that zero-emission deployment in city fleets is already sufficiently advanced. The Council cited the slow rollout of public charging infrastructure along motorways as the structural justification for the intervention.

The decision follows a pattern now well established in Brussels. A similar averaging mechanism was introduced for passenger cars and vans in 2025, allowing manufacturers to meet the 15% CO2 reduction target across a three-year window rather than annually. The logic is consistent: the regulatory framework moves, but gives industry room to catch up.

Critics will note that the amendment arrives as the EU is simultaneously debating a further revision of its 2035 targets for light-duty vehicles, with some member states pushing for a softened 90% reduction threshold rather than the current 100% zero-emission mandate. Taken together, the direction of travel in Brussels is increasingly one of managed retreat from the pace, if not the destination, of decarbonisation.

For European truck makers including Daimler Truck, Volvo Group and Traton, the ruling provides a degree of regulatory certainty at a moment when the commercial case for battery-electric heavy haulage remains fragile without a denser charging network to support it.