Germany wants to still produce and sell combustion engine vehicles after 2035

Last week, the European Parliament banned sales of new combustion engine vehicles in the EU starting in 2035. But the German government is not going to endorse the vote in its country.

Photo by Dominik Garbera on Unsplash

It’s difficult to understand how laws work in the European Union. We have a Parliament that represents the member countries, but anything decided there must be approved later in every country’s local Parliament.

On June 8th, the European Parliament voted yes (339 yes votes, 249 no votes, and 24 abstentions) to follow the recommendations of the European Commission to ban sales of new combustion engine cars starting in 2035. But this decision is not binding as local governments need to meet and decide whether they approve this decision or not.

Germany is not approving this proposal

According to German newspaper Spiegel, Economy Minister, Christian Lindner, said that there will be regions in the world where electric mobility won’t be possible in the following decades and if manufacturing combustion engine vehicles is prohibited in Europe, this technology would stop developing. Therefore, he considers that banning this type of engine is a mistake.

Lindner and his party colleague, Transport Minister Volker Wissing, have already made clear that they were against any ban on combustion engines, but there are still discrepancies in the German government as Lindner is part of a coalition composed of the FDP (Free Democratic Party), the social-democrats and the green party. It is this last party, through its Environment Ministry speaker, Steffi Lemke, who has said that they fully support the proposal from the European Commission and Parliament to only allow sales of zero CO2 emission vehicles starting in 2035, so it is not clear now what the vote will be for.

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