On Monday, the 27 member states of the European Union approved the ban on the sale of new cars with a combustion engine from 2035. However, Germany has withdrawn its opposition after agreeing with the European Commission on the future use of ‘e-fuels’ in wagons.
New cars will no longer be allowed to emit CO2 from 2035, which will effectively put an end to petrol, diesel and hybrid cars in favour of the fully electric car. The text must be formally approved on Tuesday at a meeting of energy ministers. The regulation is one of the pillars of the European climate plan to be climate neutral by 2050.
The political agreement between the EU Member States and the European Parliament to allow only zero-emission vehicles after 2035 dates from October last year. Shortly before the member states were to approve the agreement formally, however, Germany slammed on the brakes. After all, Germany has a strong car industry that should implement European legislation in its product lines.
The dispute between Berlin and the EU’s executive board centred on whether carmakers could still make cars after 2035 that run on so-called ‘e-fuels’, a class of synthetic fuels.
The European Commission and Germany announced on Saturday that they had agreed on the dispute. “Vehicles with combustion engines can also be newly admitted after 2035 if they only fill up with CO2-neutral fuels,” said the German Transport Minister Volker Wissing.