BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The Green Party has reacted with dismay to the EU Commission's plans to partially abandon the so-called combustion engine phase-out. The car package is a major mistake in terms of economic and climate policy, said Katharina Droge, chair of the Green Party parliamentary group, to the German Press Agency in Berlin. "The de facto abandonment of the 2035 target destroys planning security, devalues investments, and pushes Europe's climate targets further into the distance."
Greens see Merz as responsible
Droge blamed Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), whom she accused of waging an "ideological campaign against electric mobility." "Anyone who fights future technologies in a phase of acute economic weakness is deliberately jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs and the future of Germany as an automotive location."
Party leader Felix Banaszak expressed a similar view. "While other countries are working flat out on zero-emission cars, Friedrich Merz is selling the future of our German automotive industry to China." He lamented: "The car package that the EU Commission presented today under massive pressure from the CDU/CSU and SPD will become a gigantic bureaucratic monster. In the future, every car manufacturer will have to meticulously calculate and verify the amount of green steel used and the use of e-fuels – we all know that this will not work."
What the EU Commission is proposing
About three years ago, negotiators from the EU member states and the European Parliament agreed that new cars would no longer be allowed to emit climate-damaging CO2 from 2035.
This 100 percent reduction target is now being abandoned. In the future, there will be exceptions whereby only up to 90 percent of CO2 emissions will have to be reduced compared to the base year 2021. The prerequisite is that CO2 emissions are offset by the use of environmentally friendly steel and more climate-friendly fuels. According to the Commission, the exceptions will apply to all cars that manufacturers want to bring onto the market after 2035.
