The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is to urge the EU to soften the 2035 cutoff date for the sale of combustion-engine cars.
Merz said he would send a letter to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Friday urging Brussels to keep technological options open for carmakers. The sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the EU is scheduled to be banned in a decade’s time.
Merz’s letter hardens the battle lines emerging between Germany’s powerhouse car industry and those pleading with Brussels to stick to its flagship green policy, which is designed to help the EU meet its 2050 carbon-neutral target.
“We’re sending the right signal to the commission with this letter,” Merz said, adding that the German government wanted to protect the climate in “a technology-neutral way”.
Merz has previously said he would do all he could to ensure the 2035 deadline was softened. He has now argued it is vital that hybrid cars are allowed to still be made after 2035.
Merz said he would ask for a series of exemptions in his letter, including the right to continue to produce plug-in hybrids, battery hybrids – in which driving charges the battery – and range-extended electric vehicles with “highly efficient” combustion engines as backup to cope with long journeys.
“I will ask the commission, even after 2035, to continue to allow battery-electric vehicles that also have a combustion engine,” he said. “It is much more opportune and pragmatic to invest more effort and money in the development of efficient, hybrid systems that will combine the best of the world of internal combustion engines on the one hand and electric mobility on the other.”
The EU’s planned ban has faced complaints from some automakers that it was unworkable given European drivers’ tepid take-up of electric vehicles.
The EU in September said it would fast track a review of its plans to give carmakers more certainty.
Merz has repeatedly spoken out against the ban, but he needed to discuss the matter with his centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners before communicating a joint position to the EU.
Speaking alongside Merz, the SPD vice-chancellor and finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, said his party agreed with Merz’s centre-right CDU that there had to be changes to the ban. “The future viability of the German automotive industry, securing jobs, that is the key argument for us,” he said. “We agree that the future of the industry is electric … but we need to be open to more technologies, we need flexibility.”
The German car sector is in crisis, faced with the costs of increasing investment in EVs and fierce Chinese competition that is biting into sales.
Speaking alongside Merz and Klingbeil, the head of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, Markus Söder, said the government would introduce a subsidy of up to €5,000 (£4,380) for the purchase of electric or hybrid cars with components largely made in Germany, in an effort to boost the car industry.
On Wednesday, the European Commission vice-president, Stéphane Séjourné, said that the EU was willing to show “flexibility” in how the combustion engine phase-out was achieved, ahead of a commission announcement expected on 10 December.
The EU Commission’s chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho, was asked on Friday if the German position would change its direction on the 2035 deadline.
“We’re talking of a very, very important proposal that has big implications around Europe,” she said, adding that a consultation on the issue had closed on 10 October. “We will carefully study everything that comes our way, including the position of the German government today.”
However, the Swedish carmaker Volvo and its spin-off, Polestar, the only all-electric carmaker in Europe, and hundreds of industries that have already poured money into EVs and battery factories, are vehemently opposed to softening the 2035 date.
