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Brussels is sticking to its controversial plans for curbs on combustion engines in the EU from 2035, according to internal documents, despite heavy pressure from the car industry to water down the incoming rules.
Answers prepared for the bloc’s climate chief Wopke Hoekstra for when he faces parliamentary hearings next month and seen by the Financial Times say the EU “cannot and should not roll back” its plan to outlaw the sale of new cars powered by fossil fuels.
The law, announced in 2021, has come under fire from Europe’s carmakers as they struggle with flagging electric vehicle sales and intense competition from Chinese manufacturers.
Except for Renault, all the major European car manufacturers have issued profit warnings this year. Volkswagen, Germany’s biggest private-sector employer, is considering shutting plants in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history, it said last month.
Industry body Acea has also warned that the sector could face millions of euros in fines when stricter rules come into force next year aimed at cutting overall emissions from cars in Europe by 15 per cent compared to a 2021 baseline.
Italy has called on the European Commission to push back the ban, France is seeking more “flexibility” in how it is applied, while Germany’s coalition government is in favour of keeping combustion engines for cars that run on alternative, environmentally-friendly fuels.
Adolfo Urso, Italy’s industry minister, warned last month that the 2035 combustion-engine ban threatened a “crisis” for European car manufacturing.
Hoekstra’s briefing, however, argues that the new rules create “predictability for investors and manufacturers” and are essential for the bloc to reach its goals on reducing CO₂ emissions, as well as to “strengthen the competitiveness of the EU automotive industry”.
Julia Poliscanova, senior director at the NGO group Transport & Environment, pointed out that there would be no incentives to build battery factories if the ban were pushed back. “Instead of undermining it, carmakers should instead focus on ways Europe can help build a competitive EV industry, such as an EU battery fund, and policies that reward clean, local manufacturing,” she said.
Leonore Gewessler, Austria’s climate and energy minister, told the Financial Times that “the future of the automotive industry is electric”. She said Europe could not afford to fall behind on this technology, the way it had in smartphones despite it having an early mobile-phone champion in Finland’s Nokia.
The pressure to find more flexibility in the rules comes amid a broader groundswell of concern about the implementation of the EU’s ambitious Green Deal climate law, which aims to push the bloc to cut emissions by 55 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
Earlier this month, Brussels said it planned to delay its highly-contested deforestation law by a year amid pressure both from trading partners and EU governments.
A senior EU diplomat said the bloc needed to have “honest discussions” about countries’ ability to reach the EU’s 2030 goals.
The combustion-engine ban is expected to be a contentious topic at hearings in the European parliament before the new team of commissioners can take office.
Additional reporting by Javier Espinoza in Brussels
