Berlin and Paris Water Down the EU’s 2035 Petrol-Car Ban, and the AfD Calls It a Con

One hundred percent becomes ninety. That is the heart of the deal Germany and France announced on Friday 16 October: the EU’s plan to end sales of new petrol and diesel cars in 2035 should be loosened, so carmakers only have to cut fleet emissions by 90 percent from 2021 levels.

Brussels had already offered 90 percent last year, but with a catch: the last ten percent had to be paid back through credits such as low-carbon steel or alternative fuels. Under the Franco-German plan that compensation disappears, AFP and POLITICO report. In return, Berlin accepts stricter “Made in Europe” rules for the car industry in the EU’s planned Industrial Accelerator Act, a long-standing French demand. The Élysée says the rules can be stretched to cover Britain and Switzerland under certain conditions.

“Das angebliche ‚Aus vom Verbrenner-Aus‘ ist ein dreistes Täuschungsmanöver: Das Verbrennerverbot wird nur geringfügig aufgeweicht, es geht nicht weit genug und bleibt faktisch bestehen. Aus 100 Prozent werden 90 Prozent.”

“The supposed ‘end of the combustion-engine ban’ is a brazen deception: the ban is only slightly softened, it does not go far enough and in practice stays in place. 100 percent becomes 90 percent.”

— Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD group in the Bundestag, in a statement posted by @AfDimBundestag

A deal that almost died in Berlin

The pact was meant to be signed at the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday. It stalled at the last minute because the Social Democrats in Friedrich Merz’s coalition objected, POLITICO reports. Only when the SPD dropped its resistance did the two governments go public. Environment Minister Carsten Schneider, an SPD man, now calls it a modern realignment of German industrial policy and expects carmakers to invest and guarantee jobs in Germany. Emmanuel Macron hopes the “Franco-German dynamic” brings the other partners on board quickly.

The AfD is not impressed. Its leader Alice Weidel calls the headline a deception: combustion cars and hybrids will still be pushed into an expensive niche, and hundreds of thousands of jobs in Germany’s small and mid-sized firms depend on the combustion engine. She wants the ban scrapped completely, at once and without replacement. Nothing is decided yet. The plan still needs the other member states and the European Parliament.