While much of the talk at the Paris Motor Show is of smaller greener cars, the next stage in the EU's approval process for the CO2 cars legislation rumbles on.

Someone described it to me as the EU Hokey Cokey, and it's not hard to see why, with amendments being put in, being voted out, put back in, and sometimes getting shaken all about so much it's hard to remember where we're up to.

So here's my summary of where we are now:

Phased in targets were put in by the Industry, voted out by the Environment committee. Now they're in again with the French amendments.

Setting a new target for 2020 was out of the picture in the original proposals, put in by the Industry committee, shaken about by the Environment committee when it endorsed the setting of a 2020 target, subject to a review, and taken out again by the French presidency, who thinks that there is no rush in setting another target. But with carmakers complaining that they need more time in reaching the 2012 targets, wouldn't it be kinder to put them out of their misery and tell them now what they should be working towards?

Discussions are continuing and there are still a number of hoops to jump through, though they'll need to move fast for the French to make sure the final verse of the Hokey Cokey is sung by the end of the year.