A last-minute deal in Berlin ensured the death of the combustion engine ban — a previously unthinkable outcome. Jordyn Dahl writes on the Politico website about the Commission’s latest plan that now goes to the European Parliament and Council.
Also, check out the latest article by Monica Frassoni. She argues why the electric transition is an industrial necessity for Europe — and what we should do now to still get it right. Monica works with business and civil society for a green, just transition and cooperate to projects on fair elections around the globe. She is a former MEP and Green leader and is President of European Alliance to Save Energy.
How Germany tore down a giant pillar of EU climate policy
It was the crown jewel of a climate agenda that defined Ursula von der Leyen’s first term as Commission president.
But a little over two years after it was enacted, the European Union’s 2035 ban on gasoline-powered cars is dead.
Its killers: Germany, home of Europe’s largest car industry, and the center-right European People’s Party, the pro-business political family to which von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz belong.
It was their pressure that forced the Commission’s hand, after Berlin went from potentially abstaining on a vote to undercutting the entire combustion engine ban — all within three weeks.
Under the new proposal, the ban would be replaced by a target to reduce emissions by 90 percent in all cars sold after 2035. That means a range of vehicles will be part of the mix long past 2035, including pure combustion engines and plug-in hybrids that have both a combustion engine and an electric motor — as long as they are offset with made-in-EU green steel and alternative fuels derived from non-fossil sources.
Germany and the EPP argued the outright ban constrained the ability of European automakers to compete and took the freedom of choice away from consumers.
“Six months ago, it was unthinkable that the Commission would make this course correction,” an EU diplomat said, calling Germany’s “decisive intervention” a game changer in the fate of the law. “The ideology of pure electric is ending.”
After winning the majority of seats in the European Parliament in 2024, EPP chief Manfred Weber, also from Germany, said overturning the ban would be his top priority in the new era.
Weber claimed victory on Tuesday, calling the reformed legislation cutting the 2035 emissions target from 100 percent to 90 percent a “massive reduction.”
“We only can win the fight against climate change if we combine it with an economically reasonable approach. The combustion engine is allowed to be sold in the European Union after 2035,” he told a Tuesday press conference ahead of the announcement.
Cars account for 16 percent of EU emissions, making the ban an important — and certainly the most visible — pillar of the EU’s climate policy of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
By the Commission’s own calculations, dropping the emissions target to 90 percent means that 25 percent of the cars sold after 2035 would emit CO2, equivalent to roughly 2.6 million vehicles.
The new targets are part of a broader automotive package put forward by the European Commission on Tuesday that included a new regulation mandating zero-emissions corporate fleet targets for each EU country, a battery booster to increase supply, and a regulatory red-tape cutting measure that introduces a new small-car initiative.
The combined measures are meant to boost Europe’s automakers, which are facing a trade war courtesy of U.S. President Donald Trump, stiff competition from Chinese incumbents with high-tech electric vehicles, and stagnant sales across the bloc.
German Chancellor Merz, who also advocated reversing the ban in his bid for office, took a more measured tone, calling the revised ban “a clear signal” that it is the right way to “better align climate targets, market realities, companies and jobs.”
For months Merz had tried to corral his governing coalition — which combines the conservative Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats — into a common position on the ban. While the CDU pushed hard for it to be overturned, the SPD wanted to hold the line.
Ultimately the conservatives won, putting forward a request for regulation that walks a line between industrial competitiveness and protecting the climate.
No one’s happy
While the Commission calls it a balanced approach that still paves the way for electric vehicles to take over from CO2-emitting cars, political groups across the spectrum call it a disaster — albeit for different reasons.
The left says reversing the ban will deal a blow to the climate and yet fail to give Europe’s automakers a competitive boost.
“The real problem facing Europe’s car industry is not a law that takes effect in 10 years. It is the collapse of European car sales in China and the steady global decline of combustion-engine markets,” said German Greens MEP Michael Bloss. “Continuing to bet on combustion engines is not an industrial strategy — it is a failure of one.”
For the far right, meanwhile, the measures don’t go far enough. MEP Volker Schnurrbusch, a member of Germany’s opposition AfD party, said in a debate in the Parliament that the real issue is the Commission “dictating” what form of transport consumers use.
The European Conservatives and Reformists, meanwhile, called the reformed 2035 law a missed opportunity that “falls short of providing the bold actions” needed to make the sector more globally competitive.
The differing views on the ban’s reversal will continue to be heard in negotiations among the EU’s institutions, particularly in the Council where EU capitals will battle it out with Cyprus — a small country with no automotive sector — acting as referee.
Already, France is gearing up for a fight.
“The negotiations are just beginning,” a Paris officials said, adding that allowing combustion engine cars to be sold past 2035 is a red line for the country, even as it gets its desired European preference requirements.
Behind the scenes, the automotive sector will continue to lobby to undercut the regulation even more.
“The announced measures to mandate the greening of corporate fleets risk running counter to the necessary market and incentive-based approach,” EU car lobby ACEA said in a statement.
Yet that is exactly what the Commission is hoping, with multiple industry officials telling POLITICO that the corporate fleets measure is meant to act as a backstop for the gutting of the combustion engine ban.
Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra admitted as much in his remarks before the Parliament Tuesday evening.
“Corporate fleets will steer the clean transition and will help the automakers meet their targets,” he said.
The proposal must now be debated by member countries and in the European Parliament.
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