The drama surrounding the 2035 combustion ban is over. As early as next Tuesday, the energy ministers of the EU member states can finally adopt the new CO2 requirements for cars. So far, the topic is not even on the agenda. But the ambassadors of the EU states are to make up for this on Monday morning at 10 o'clock. They had suspended their preparatory meeting for the Council of Ministers early Friday evening only in order to be able to react quickly.

Hendrik Kafsack

Economic correspondent in Brussels.

  • Follow I follow

The agreement between EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans and Transport Minister Volker Wissing was already emerging at that time. Actually, the European Parliament and EU states had already agreed in principle last autumn on the combustion engine. At the beginning of March, however, Wissing had prevented the planned vote of the ministers at the last minute in an unprecedented and heavily criticized blockade.

Since then, Timmermans and Wissing had negotiated intensively, exchanging new proposals, letters and e-mails. Then, on Friday morning, the Commission presented a final proposal in which Timmermans moved far towards Wissing.

Wissing: "Europe remains technology-neutral"

The mood there fluctuated between relief and jubilation. At 14 p.m., Wissing will make a statement, it was quickly said. But the Federal Ministry of Transport wanted to be absolutely sure. Instead of the hoped-for agreement, Wissing then only announced that he was confident. However, "final legal questions" would have to be examined.

Late in the evening, the lawyers were sure. "The way is clear: Europe remains technology-neutral," Wissing tweeted on Saturday morning at 10:01 a.m. "We have an agreement," Timmermans followed three minutes later. Both sides initially kept a low profile on the details. The European Commission will present a statement to ministers on Tuesday in which it will explain everything else, the authority said. Wissing was at least a little more concrete.

A backdoor for e-fuels

In a first step, according to his tweet, a new vehicle category for cars fueled with demonstrably climate-neutral synthetic fuels, so-called e-fuels, is to be created. Then these are to be "integrated" into the CO2 requirements for cars. In other words, the CO2 requirements for cars will initially be adopted exactly as planned. This means that the combustion ban for the year 2035 comes into force. Subsequently, however, a back door is to be created that will still give combustion engines powered by e-fuels a future.

For the European Commission and the majority of EU member states and the European Parliament, which – this must not be forgotten – are all in favour of phasing out combustion engines, the worst has been prevented. That would have been if the EU had had to reopen the law on the CO2 requirements for cars itself. This would have been extremely difficult from a legal point of view and would also have jeopardised the adoption of the entire, much larger EU climate package.

Ultimately, however, even Wissing never demanded such a step. From the beginning, he wanted something completely different: that the Commission – as at least according to the understanding of the FDP in the autumn firmly promised – makes concrete commitments to prevent the complete end for the combustion engine in 2035 in another way.

What this should look like in concrete terms, had explained the Federal Ministry of transport in a mail sent on Thursday evening to the office manager of Timmermans. According to Brussels, the agreement that has now been reached is largely based on this, which is why it is worth taking a closer look.