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Cars in front of the Colosseum in Rome: Italy opposes European combustion engine off
Photo: IMAGO/Dominika Zarzycka / IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
Italy wants to vote at a European meeting against the end of combustion engines in new cars from 2035.
The country will express its position against the proposed European regulation at a meeting of EU countries' ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday, Italy's Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin announced on Tuesday evening, according to Reuters.
The European Parliament approved the project in February.
According to this, car manufacturers should have to reduce the CO2 emissions of new cars sold by 100 percent by 2035 - this means a ban on the production and sale of petrol and diesel engines.
However, the EU countries still have to formally approve this.
That could now fail, because the German Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing (FDP), had recently threatened a headwind for the project.
"Italy believes that electric vehicles should not be the only way to achieve zero emissions in the transition period," the minister said in a statement.
The state has previously spoken out against the project.
Last week, the Italian government said it wanted to join forces with France and Germany to influence and slow the pace of EU legislation to reduce car and truck emissions.
In Brussels, meanwhile, it can be heard that Poland and Bulgaria could not vote for the ban on internal combustion engines if Germany abstains.
This would stop the important climate protection project of the EU Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) for the time being.
On Tuesday, Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) explained in the "Bild" that he only wanted to approve the project if there was a compromise on the use of e-fuels.
The FDP demands that new cars with combustion engines may still be registered after 2035 if they can only be refueled with e-fuels.
Theoretically, these synthetic fuels can be produced in a climate-neutral manner.
But this requires huge amounts of green electricity - the manufacturing process is extremely energy-intensive.
In addition, combustion engines work so inefficiently that a large part of the energy used is wasted again.
lki/Reuters
