It should have been a routine vote, little more than putting the stamp of 'approved' on an agreement that the Council of Ministers of the EU, the European Parliament and the European Commission for almost three years to, from 2035, prohibit the sale of cars with combustion engines throughout the Union, an ambitious but key measure for the common objective of achieving climate neutrality in the year 2050. In 2021 Parliament voted for it and the governments positioned themselves. At the end of 2022, the two parties sat down to negotiate their differences in the trilogue format. Two weeks ago, the European Parliament gave its approval to the final text that came out of those conversations. Today, the ambassadors were to give the green light to the inter-institutional commitment and leave the text ready for approval, without debate, at the ministerial level next Tuesday. It is the usual procedure but, a few hours after giving the green light to the momentous decision, everything has blown up.
At the last moment, Germany changed its mind, distanced itself from the agreement and today blocked the ratification of the agreement. Their opposition to the pact, which conditions guarantees on the possibility of using ecological fuels, added to the well-known opposition of Italy, Poland and Hungary to this decision have jeopardized the approval of the measure and the Swedish presidency of the EU has opted for withdrawing it from the agenda of the meeting of ambassadors held today in Brussels to continue negotiating. It is expected, diplomatic sources have explained, that the president of the European Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, will personally intervene this weekend to find a solution that saves the agreement.
The community executive recalls that his proposal is "technologically neutral": it is not specifically inclined towards electric cars or a specific formula, it only stipulates that from 2035 all cars sold in the EU will not be able to emit any CO2. Brussels has also promised to present a proposal soon on the use of ecological fuels. "If the Commission has a credible position in its talks with the ministers and the German government, I am optimistic about the possibilities of finding a solution," said yesterday the Secretary of State for the Economy and Climate Action, the environmentalist Sven Giegold.
After days of rumors, Germany's transport minister, the liberal Volker Wissing, confirmed on Tuesday that his party wanted a more flexible approach than contained in the legislation, which has been widely contested from the German car industry. The position of the Social Democrats, on the other hand, is more favorable to the technology of electric cars and is skeptical regarding the cost of e-fuels. In any case, Berlin demands additional guarantees that the proposal so that it can be used in cars with combustion engines beyond 2035 will arrive before the end of the mandate of the current Commission, without waiting for the general revision clause of the planned regulations. for the year 2026.
