On Friday 3 March, the Committee of Member States’ representatives to the EU (‘Coreper’) decided to postpone the formal adoption of the agreement on new, stricter CO2 emission standards for new cars and vans from 2035. The EU Council vote on this text, which is to signal the end of sales of new combustion engine vehicles in 2035, was due to take place on 7 March. Coreper “will come back to the issue in due course”, said a spokesperson for the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council.
This decision comes as German Transport Minister Volker Wissing announced on 28 February that Germany would oppose the agreement (see EUROPE 13131/6) - already formally adopted by the European Parliament on 14 February in the plenary session (see EUROPE 13121/13) - if the European Commission does not present a new proposal to allow the registration of new vehicles running on ‘e-fuels’.
“Germany will only accept the agreement if the Commission makes a proposal on how internal combustion engine vehicles running solely on e-fuels can be registered even after 2035”, Wissing said.
The German government’s announcement undermined the guarantee of a qualified majority among the EU27, while several other Member States, such as Italy, Poland and Bulgaria, had already indicated that they would not support the agreement.
The postponement of the vote provoked many reactions within the institutions.
The EPP welcomed this last-minute change, insisting on the need to include ‘e-fuels’ in the list of alternative fuels that can be used.
“The EPP Group has consistently voted against such a ban and calls on the Member States to do the same. The ban will prevent innovation and cost thousands of jobs and will lead to the decline of a core European industry”, commented Jens Gieseke (EPP, German). He added: “We are in favour of an ambitious reduction of CO2 in transport, but we need to uphold technological neutrality and do not need a complete ban on combustion engines”.
On the other hand, for the Greens/EFA group, the news came as a cold shower. “E-fuels are not a solution for the automotive sector, even though German Transport Minister Volker Wissing is banking on them. (...) It is precisely in air traffic, which cannot be electrified today from a purely technical point of view, that there is an urgent need for them. We cannot afford to burn e-fuels in cars”, said Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg (Greens/EFA, German). (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)