Nobody said it would be easy, but who was going to tell the institutions of the European Union that one of the star measures to achieve climate neutrality, the retirement of combustion cars from 2035, was going to become a pain in the neck. head led by Germany, accompanied by the important lobby of car manufacturers. After three weeks of negotiations, Brussels and Berlin finally closed an agreement yesterday that will allow the legislation to go ahead.
"We have reached an agreement with Germany on the future use of synthetic fuels in cars," announced Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the European Commission in charge of the European Green Deal, on his Twitter account. “We will work now to have automotive CO2 standards adopted as soon as possible,” he added.
The agreement reached has been achieved thanks to "innovative solutions" that Brussels always tends to find when negotiations get complicated. The European Commission proposed this week to Germany the creation of a new category of vehicles with combustion engines that run on synthetic fuels and that their sale be authorized beyond 2035. In exchange, manufacturers must ensure that vehicles with Synthetic fuels cannot also work with gasoline or diesel, in the event that these types of hydrocarbons are introduced: they will not be able to start. This will ensure that, in effect, from 2035 no newly registered car emits carbon dioxide. Synthetic fuels or e-fuels are neutral in CO2 emissions, they are manufactured with hydrogen and carbon previously captured or obtained with biomass.
The German Minister of Transport, the liberal Volker Wissing, was pleased with the agreement because it "opens the way for carbon-neutral internal combustion engines." "This was an important point in the coalition government," he pointed out. The minister explained that the first step will be to introduce the new category of vehicles with e-fuels and then it can be added to the regulation, something that Berlin hopes to finalize in the fall of 2024. For Wissing, the pact offers the population the possibility of having more options for “climate neutral and affordable mobility”.
The pact does not change the legislation previously agreed between the institutions at the end of last year, which took almost two years to negotiate, and which is part of the plan known as Fit For 55. An ambitious battery of measures that aims to reduce at least 55% polluting emissions between now and 2030 in the EU, according to 1990 values.
The Executive himself admitted that the measure was ambitious, but he also knew how to see that there was no turning back. In its impact assessment when presenting the legislation, the Commission warned that if it did not take measures against pollution, without the elimination of combustion cars, it would not be able to reduce emissions sufficiently in 2030, much less reach climate neutrality in the 2050.
The agreement was ratified in the European Parliament in February, and the countries should have given the final green light at the beginning of this month until Germany, at the last minute, objected, joining another large number of countries (Italy, Poland or Hungary, who also had reservations for various reasons). The agreement reached sought above all to bet on electric vehicles, at a time when the automobile industry itself has also begun to manufacture more cars of this type. Even so, the pact never specified what type of engines should be used, only that they should not emit carbon dioxide. In fact, during the negotiations, precisely due to the pressure exerted by Germany and Italy, the commitment was made that by 2026 the Community Executive would open up to study the inclusion of synthetic fuels as an option, also to leave room for a technology that right now is residual and very expensive.
But that commitment, for Germany, the leading car manufacturer in the EU, was no longer enough. The Minister of Transport, from the Liberal Party, who supports a large part of the demands of the automobile lobby, and after several electoral setbacks, has wanted to become a supporter of such an important industry for the country. Thus, Berlin asked for more guarantees so that, indeed, cars with e-fuels could circulate beyond 2035. It was not worth it for him to study the 2026 option. He wanted certainties.
Germany's insistence has surprised many. Synthetic fuels are expensive, around 2.80 euros per liter, according to a recent study by the environmental association Transport
In general, the automobile industry is investing in electric vehicles. Big companies have already been preparing for the transition. Peugeot has already planned that its entire range of cars will have electric or hybrid versions by 2025, Fiat wants to gradually move from now to 2030, Opel, Ford and Volvo have begun to prepare for all their vehicles to be electric in the next decade. . But some manufacturers such as BMW or VW-Porsche have insisted on the option of combustion engines with e-fuels. On the other hand, Julia Poliscanova, from Transport
