By Kate Abnett and Andreas Rinke
BERLIN/BRUSSELS, March 6 (Reuters) – Germany’s transport minister is confident that the dispute with the European Union over a law that will end the sale of new CO2-emitting cars by 2035 will be resolved.
After months of negotiations, the European Parliament, Commission and EU members agreed last year on a law that requires all new cars sold in the bloc after 2035 to have zero CO2 emissions , making it impossible to sell cars with combustion engines from that date.
But in recent weeks German support has faltered, forcing Brussels to delay a final vote to pass the law due this week. At this stage of the legislative process, this vote should have been a formality, and an attempt to rewrite EU policy so late is highly unusual.
“We are on the right track,” said Volker Wissing on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting in Meseberg, near Berlin.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attended the meeting on Sunday, where she and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said they had “constructive discussions”, without giving further details.
The transport minister said on Monday he agreed with von der Leyen that EU climate targets must be met and the question was how to embed openness to technology into legislation .
Wissing wants the use of synthetic fuels to remain possible after the 2035 deadline – a potential lifeline for combustion engine cars – and said the Commission’s promised proposal on how to achieve this is lacking .
The European regulation foresees that the Commission will present a proposal on how vehicles running on CO2-neutral fuels can be sold after 2035, provided that climate objectives are met.
Pascal Canfin, chairman of the European Parliament’s environment committee, said he had not been asked to reopen negotiations on the law.
This, he said, would risk derailing other carefully negotiated deals on climate policy at the last minute.
“It would kill the Green Deal. So out of the question,” Canfin said, referring to EU climate targets.
Transport is responsible for nearly a quarter of EU emissions and has offset the general downward trend in the bloc’s CO2 output in recent decades.
The EU has not yet postponed the vote. The European Commission and Sweden, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, are in talks with the countries to reach an agreement.
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke and Kate Abnett; Writing by Miranda Murray; Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)