Following today’s plenary debate on the future of EU climate and transport policy, Volt MEP Kai Tegethoff criticised the plans proposed by the European Commission’s to backtrack on the 2035 combustion-engine phase-out, a cornerstone of the EU’s strategy to decarbonise road transport and meet climate goals. The Commission plans to relax the ban, allowing a limited share of internal-combustion and hybrid vehicles to remain on sale beyond 2035 rather than fully zero-emission vehicles. At the same time, targets for the electrification of corporate fleets remain low and unclear.
“Today’s proposal turns any climate ambition into a relic of the past. If we let short-term industrial lobbying overwrite Europe’s climate commitments, we betray both our climate targets and the next generation”, said Tegethoff, both member of the Committees on Transport and on Environment.
He emphasised that weakening the ban undermines the EU’s credibility on climate leadership at a time when competitor markets are accelerating electrification, and when science clearly demands faster decarbonisation of transport.
“Delaying the inevitable is not leadership – it’s procrastination dressed in regulatory loopholes. We should be busy building the charging infrastructure and market incentives for electric mobility, not inventing excuses to keep polluting engines on the road.”
At the same time, the package falls short of defining a clear commitment to decarbonise corporate fleets. “This could have been a strong incentive for companies to invest in electric vehicles – and would lead to an affordable and available EVs on the second hand market in the near future. But the Commission’s proposal fails to deliver. Electrifying corporate fleets remains a suggestion, not a binding regulation, with great flexibility between member states and trucks are not even considered in the plan. So we’re not only complaining that we cannot reach our targets, we’re not even trying.”
Tegethoff also warned that in its current form, the automotive package will jeopardise investment in zero-emission vehicles, making Europe less competitive globally: “If we water down our own climate rules, we simply hand the future over to others. Lowering our targets will not help Europe’s struggling automotive industry. It will eventually erase their presence in the global market.”