By Andreas Kissler
BERLIN (Dow Jones) — The Federal Ministry of Transport is currently examining the European Commission’s response to a proposed solution to the dispute over the end of combustion engines, which Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) sent to Brussels on Thursday evening. “I can confirm that there is a reaction,” said ministry spokesman Tim Alexandrin at a press conference in Berlin. “However, this is still being tested.” One cannot anticipate that. An extensive legal examination is required. Meanwhile, Wissing has announced a press conference on the subject for 2:00 p.m.
Central elements of the German proposal are a commitment by the Commission to technology neutrality and the anchoring of this principle in the fleet limit value regulations, an immediate creation of the vehicle category “e-fuels only”, the possibility of registering these vehicles and, by autumn 2023 at the latest, the enactment of a delegated act that Integrate e-fuels vehicles into the fleet limits and legally guarantee their approval even after 2023. “We want cars that run on climate-friendly fuels to be able to be newly registered in the future,” explained Wissing via the short message service Twitter. “Our proposal to the EU Commission is the end of the combustion engine.”
Der Spiegel had previously reported that Secretary of State for Transport Hartmut Höppner sent an email to the Commission on Thursday. According to Spiegel, Wissing has backed away from its earlier demand to renegotiate the planned fleet limits so that cars with combustion engines can still be approved after 2035. Instead, Wissing’s ministry is now calling for “in the course of the acceptance” of the new CO2 limits in a statement to allow cars that run exclusively on synthetic fuels (e-fuels) to be permitted even after 2035. Such a passage is currently only in the form of a legally non-binding so-called recital in the planned law on the new CO2 limits.
(Collaboration: Andrea Thomas)
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DJG/tank/apo
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2023 07:22 ET (11:22 GMT)