Estonia rejects EU charging mandate for large store car parks

Estonia will not fully transpose a European Union directive requiring larger store car parks to prepare for electric vehicle charging, ERR reports. The Climate Ministry hopes other member states will take the same position.

The directive, updated with Estonia’s approval two and a half years ago, is intended in part to support the wider use of electric cars.

From the beginning of next year, large car parks serving non-residential buildings would be required to have a charging point at every tenth parking space. As an alternative, every second space would need to have cable conduits installed so charging cables could be added in the future.

Nele Peil, head of the Estonian Traders Association, said a year and a half ago that meeting the directive’s minimum requirements could cost companies between 500 million and 2 billion euros.

Prime Minister Kristen Michal said at the time that requirements such as cabling car parks should be discussed with the European Commission if they were not reasonable.

The Climate Ministry has now decided not to transpose the relevant provision. It is therefore not included in the draft legislation the ministry sent to interest groups for comment on Monday.

Ivo Jaanisoo, the ministry’s deputy secretary general, said Estonia had proposed to the European Commission that the obligation to install charging points in large car parks should be eased.

“After consulting business organisations and looking at how technology has developed since the directive was agreed, we do not see that it would be possible to introduce this new regulation in Estonia in this form,” Jaanisoo said. He added that ensuring sufficient grid capacity to support existing market practices was more important for promoting electric cars and sustainable transport in general.

Jaanisoo said all member states were currently behind schedule in transposing the directive and that Estonia hoped other countries would also refuse to adopt the charging infrastructure requirements. However, it is not yet known to what extent other states will implement them.

“From our discussions with other countries, we see that this may not be as high a priority or as topical elsewhere. In many countries, electric vehicle charging infrastructure has been given a much higher priority, and there are also more electric cars,” Jaanisoo said.

Peil said the traders association welcomed the ministry’s plan. Some companies may already have begun meeting the directive’s requirements by installing charging cables in their car parks, she said, but those businesses would also benefit if the obligation was dropped.

“On the whole, this is also good for them. If you have a choice between having to make this investment across 100 percent of your car parks and having already completed 20 percent while avoiding the additional costs for the remaining 80 percent, the latter is still better,” Peil said.

According to the Transport Administration, Estonia has nearly 12,300 electric cars, accounting for less than two percent of all passenger cars.

The Climate Ministry is accepting feedback on its planned amendments to the Building Code until September 28.