The European Commission said today it could not give a new date for proposing legislation to curb carbon dioxide emissions from cars.
It postponed a decision last week amid fierce disputes between the environmental and industry lobbies.
"We are not driven by a day or two, or by a week or two, but by the urge to get this right," a commission spokesman said.
He rejected a warning by Germany's automobile industry that imposing binding targets would cost jobs, saying the best way to preserve jobs was to embrace and anticipate change rather than resist it.