A reprieve for certain thermal cars? The European Commission and Germany announced on Saturday that they have reached an agreement to unblock a key text of the EU climate plan on CO2 emissions from cars, by relaxing the ban on combustion engines after 2035.
“We have reached an agreement with Germany on the future use of synthetic fuels in cars,” European Environment Commissioner Frans Timmermans announced on Twitter. “Vehicles equipped with a combustion engine can be registered after 2035 if they only use neutral fuels in terms of CO2 emissions,” said German Transport Minister Volker Wissing.
Berlin had stunned its European partners in early March by blocking at the last moment a regulation providing for the reduction of CO2 emissions from new vehicles to zero, effectively imposing 100% electric engines from the middle of the next decade.
This text had already been the subject of an agreement in October between Member States and European Parliament negotiators, with the green light from Germany, and had been approved in mid-February by MEPs meeting in plenary.
To justify its volte-face, extremely rare at this stage of the procedure, Germany demanded that the Commission present a proposal opening the way to vehicles running on synthetic fuels.
This technology, still under development, would consist in producing fuel from CO2 resulting from industrial activities. Defended by high-end German and Italian manufacturers, it would extend the use of heat engines after 2035.
The Commission has been negotiating in recent weeks the terms of a way out of the crisis with Germany, which demanded a firmer commitment on synthetic fuels, admittedly already mentioned in the initial text, but in a recital deemed legally too lax.
Synthetic fuel technology is contested by environmental NGOs who consider it costly, energy-intensive and polluting. Many automotive experts also doubt that it can impose itself on the market against electric cars whose prices are expected to fall in the years to come.
The blockade of Berlin was an initiative of the liberals of the FDP. This small party, credited with about 5% of voting intentions in national polls, lost five consecutive regional elections. He hopes to assert himself against environmentalists by posing as a defender of the automobile, betting on the hostility of a large part of the population to the ban on combustion engines. To ensure the unity of his coalition, the Social Democratic Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, preferred to align himself with the FDP’s request.
The industry, for its part, has largely anticipated European regulations and has invested massively in electric vehicles. Even if they prove their worth, synthetic fuels, which do not exist today, “will not play an important role in the medium term in the segment of passenger cars”, declared Markus Duesmann, the boss of Audi (Volkswagen group), weekly Spiegel.