The 27 member states of the EU definitively approved this Tuesday the end of heat engines in new cars from 2035. This measure is a central point of the climate plan of the 27.
It is a long soap opera which ends this Tuesday, March 28. The 27 have definitively ratified the text which will force new cars to no longer emit CO2 from the middle of the next decade, effectively banning petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles, in favor of 100% electric vehicles. This text is part of the European objective of carbon neutrality in 2050.
Compromise found this weekend with the Germans
This historic vote closes several weeks of tension between the Member States, after Germany did an about-face, asking to renegotiate the text to obtain from the Commission the authorization of synthetic fuels. Berlin had stunned its partners in early March by blocking the regulation, when it had already been approved in mid-February by MEPs meeting in plenary, after a green light from member states, including Germany.
This e-fuel technology, controversial and still under development, would consist in producing fuel from CO2 resulting from industrial activities. Defended by top-of-the-range German and Italian manufacturers, it would make it possible to extend the use of thermal engines after 2035. A solution which will mainly concern sports and top-of-the-range models. It is contested by many environmental associations which do not see it as a lasting solution.
A delegated act for synthetic fuel
Although German Transport Minister Volker Wissing was pleased that vehicles fitted with a combustion engine could be registered after 2035 if they only use neutral fuels in terms of CO2 emissions, synthetic fuels are not not part of the text voted on Tuesday.
The authorization to register these vehicles with internal combustion engines using e-fuels will be included in what is called a delegated act, ie a separate proposal which will be submitted to parliament for a vote in a few months. This leaves an uncertain outcome to this vote. Some MEPs, headwind against what they consider to be a capitulation of Brussels, have already made it known that they would block.
In France, we are pleased to have come out of the impasse, with an unchanged deadline of 2035, but we strongly criticize the German method. We must be careful, it is explained to the cabinet of Agnès Pannier Runacher, not to weaken the European institutions by reopening closed texts: this sends a very bad signal while other emblematic laws for the climate, such as the reform of the electricity market, for example, are being negotiated in Brussels.
