The vote in Coreper to give the green light to the ban on endothermic engines in Europe starting from 2035 has been postponed. Will Italy and Germany, together with Poland and Bulgaria, reverse the course of the EU?
March 6, 2023
After being postponed to 7 March, Coreper’s vote on the stop the registration in Europe of cars and vans powered by endothermic engines scheduled for 2035 was not then held: the Swedish presidency of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States of the European Union preferred postpone the vote to a later date.
After Poland and Bulgariaamong the countries skeptical about the regulation there had in fact also been theItaly and Germanywith the latter asking through her own Transport Minister Volker Wissing a further proposal to allow vehicles with internal combustion engine powered by e-fuel to be registered even after the fateful 2035, a position that probably also reflects the political balance within the German government coalition.
Italy, for its part, had clearly expressed in the voice of the owner of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security the will to seek an “economically sustainable and socially equitable transition”, declaring that he would vote against while, following the postponement of the vote, the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni commented on Facebook that “The postponement, to a later date, of the vote at the meeting of EU ambassadors on the Regulation which provides for a halt to the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2035 is an Italian success. Our government’s position is in fact clear : a sustainable and equitable transition must be planned and carried out carefully, to avoid negative repercussions in terms of production and employment. Coreper’s decision to return to the issue in due course goes exactly in the direction of technological neutrality that we indicated. to zero CO2 emissions in the shortest possible time, but the freedom must be left to the States to take the path they deem most effective and sustainable. This means not closing the path towards clean technologies other than electricity a priori. This is the line which has found wide acceptance in Europe”.
All stranded, therefore: until when? Difficult to say, however, a total and absolute reversal in the face and therefore in the future to disavow an initiative on which until recently Germany and Italy had voted in favor appears rather unlikely but it is also true that the balance has changed and that neighbors European elections 2024 they could reserve some surprises in this sense both in the electoral campaign and then in the subsequent electoral results. Moving the observation even further, another turning point in the story could be the 2026 review clause, on the basis of which to reformulate the deadlines for the zeroing of CO2 emissions for automotive engines on the basis of progress on alternative fuels, e-fuels and biofuels. What is certain is that Germany, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria have given a signal on the need for careful reflection on the issues of energy transition.
