According to Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing, Germany must take the path to climate neutrality with a technology-open and innovation-friendly policy. "We can only advance our country with concrete proposals and not with climate blah blah," he said on Saturday in Mainz at the Rhineland-Palatinate FDP party congress, where he is running for re-election as state chairman. In his keynote speech, he distributed side blows to the Greens, with whom the FDP sits at the coalition table both at the federal and state level. He only touched on state politics.

Traffic by rail and road will continue to increase in Germany, Wissing said. Climate-neutral mobility exists in many ways, not just one. In his opinion, the importance of the car will not decrease, but increase slightly. "We cannot secure our climate targets without synthetic fuels," he said with a view to the discussion in the EU on future drive types for cars. "It's about having climate-neutral and affordable vehicles." One should not concentrate on just one type of drive such as the electric battery. "We want to keep every technical innovation open to this country," he said.

The EU vote on the planned end of new cars with combustion engines from 2035 was postponed last week due to additional demands from Germany. Wissing had demanded a proposal from the EU Commission on how climate-neutral, synthetic fuels, so-called e-fuels, could be used in internal combustion engines after 2035.