"A group of large European Union countries is threatening to block a plan by Brussels to effectively ban the internal combustion engine, endangering the bloc's ambitious agenda to combat climate change.
Germany and Italy said this week they could block the plan's formal approval at crucial meetings this week and next. Berlin said it would oppose the plan unless Brussels agrees to allow so-called synthetic fuels that can burn like gasoline and diesel but spew fewer climate-damaging emissions alongside fully electric vehicles.
Under the leadership of the European Commission, the EU's executive body, Europe adopted an ambitious plan to fight climate-change-causing greenhouse-gas emissions. The plan relies on the mass adoption of electric vehicles and effectively bans new combustion-engine vehicles from 2035.
Parts of the auto industry, which employs 3.4 million people in the EU -- nearly 12% of all manufacturing jobs -- pushed back, arguing that including so-called e-fuels into the plan would allow emission targets to be hit while stretching the costly move away from combustion engines over decades.
Some governments expressed sympathy with the demand as the move to electric vehicles, which are less complex to produce than their combustion rivals, threatens large numbers of jobs in the region.
Under a compromise reached last October, lawmakers agreed that the European Commission could put forward additional rules allowing new vehicles with engines that use carbon-neutral fuels to continue to be sold, but it has yet to do so.
German Transport Minister Volker Wissing on Tuesday said Berlin wanted Brussels to present this legislation ahead of the plan's approval, saying that because it had yet to do so, "the German government cannot approve the compromise."
Italy's Environment Ministry said environmental targets should be pursued in a way that avoids harming jobs and production and electric vehicles shouldn't be seen as the only route to zero emissions.
Two other countries pushed back on the legislation. Poland informed other member states it plans to vote against the plan, and Bulgaria indicated it plans to abstain, four EU diplomats said. Poland's government previously said such a ban would restrict consumer choice and lead to higher costs. By acting together, those countries have enough votes to block the plan.
A spokesman for the commission said it is up to the commission's political leadership to determine what legislation to propose and when to do so. "The transition to zero-emissions vehicles is absolutely necessary" to meet the bloc's climate targets, he said.
The European car sector and countries that have begun investing heavily in e-fuel development spearheaded the effort against the provision in the commission's plan stating that vehicles should be emissions-free by 2035 -- a de facto combustion-engine ban.
Germany, home to the region's largest car makers, said this week that it would soon approve the use of synthetic fuels, a move that would force Brussels to either follow suit or challenge the German law." [1]
It all depends on whether that synthetic fuel will be much more expensive than electricity. If so, we will not buy such cars ourselves.
1. Business News: Germany, Italy Aim to Block EU Combustion-Engine Ban
Kim Mackrael; Boston, William. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 02 Mar 2023: B.6.
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