The representative of Sweden, currently acting as the bloc’s presiding country, states that the member states will return to examining this issue in the near future.
The vote, originally scheduled for March 7, will be considered only a formality, as the European Parliament and the member states had already reached an agreement on this issue last October.
However, German Transport Minister Volker Wissing has expressed objections, warning that Berlin will not support this ban. Vissing explains that the European Commission has not published an additional draft law regarding how it will still be possible to register new cars and minibuses powered by climate-neutral fuels after 2035.
The promised proposal was part of an agreement reached last summer to win the support of Wiesing’s Free Democratic Party of Germany for the ban. Without Germany’s support, a majority in this vote was unlikely, so it was postponed.
Interestingly, as recently as 2016, Germany itself had a determined plan to register only cars with environmentally friendly engines from 2030, abandoning gasoline and diesel engines.
Norway, which is outside the EU, ranks first in Europe with electric cars, where a new sales record was achieved last year – 138,265 electric cars were sold, 79.3% of the total number of cars sold. Meanwhile, in the first nine months of last year in the EU, only 8.6% of the vehicles sold were electric cars. Norway aims to sell only electric or hydrogen powered cars by 2025.
