Brussels agrees with Germany to lift its veto on the ban on combustion engines in 2035

Brussels agrees with Germany to lift its veto on the ban on combustion engines in 2035

The vice president of the European Commission for the European Green Pact, Frans Timmermans, announced this Saturday an agreement with Germany to lift its veto on the ban on combustion engines in 2035.

"We have reached an agreement with Germany on the future use of synthetic fuels in cars," Timmermans announced on his Twitter account.

Brussels had raised a possible fit of synthetic fuels in the framework of the negotiations for the ban on the sale of combustion vehicles in the European Union (EU) from 2035, a measure that had been paralyzed due to the fact that the Government German wants to include this type of fuel in the agreement.

The ban on marketing combustion vehicles -including gasoline, diesel and hybrid ones- from 2035, was postponed without a new date due to last-minute doubts expressed by Germany and Italy and that could jeopardize the adoption of the new regulation, which is part of the climate package that the EU wants to promote this legislature to reduce the block's polluting emissions by at least 55% on the horizon of 2030 and with respect to those of 1990.

"Now we are going to work so that the CO2 standards for cars are adopted as soon as possible," added Timmermans, before warning that the legal framework for the synthetic fuels will only be developed when the basic agreement is unlocked and adopted. for the 27.

The European Union agreed months ago to prohibit the sale in its territory of cars that emit CO2 from 2035 after a negotiation between the Twenty-seven and the European Parliament. The agreement does not speak of engine technologies, so it does not exclude the combustion engine. But the current technological development invites us to think that the electric motor or hydrogen cells are the best scalable solution.

However, the original pact already included, at the request of Germany and Italy, the commitment of the European Commission to present in 2026 an update of the regulations in relation to synthetic fuels or "e-fuels", which are theoretically climate neutral. because they only emit CO2 previously captured and would allow, a priori, to continue selling cars with combustion engines.

The European Parliament approved the agreement in a plenary session in February and when the member states were preparing to do the same in a vote by their ambassadors in Brussels, Germany changed its mind and blocked the agreement. Since then, the European Parliament has been strict about the impossibility of altering the agreed legal text because it would "kill" not only the community climate policy, but the credibility of the EU legislative process as a whole.

The Berlin order, promoted by the third party of the government coalition in Germany, the liberals of the FDP, found some support from countries such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria. On the other hand, it has generated confusion and rejection in a large part of the rest of the Member States, including Spain, which have been stunned by the change of position just before the formal approval procedure, a political dribble so unusual that similar maneuvers are not remembered in the past.

This same Friday, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, advanced that Berlin and Brussels would be able to reach an agreement so that the German Government lifts its last-minute veto on the legislation already negotiated and agreed so that from 2035 they can only be sold in the EU cars that do not emit CO2.

"I know that journalism is also part of the entertainment industry and it seems silly for us to agree, but it will happen," said the German president jokingly at a press conference, asked about the German blockade of that star measure. the climate policy of the European Union.