Socialist-EPP rift extends to the 2035 ban on conventional engines

From the Strasbourg correspondent – The EPP and the Socialists renewed their confrontation on clean vehicles and future engines, taking the driver’s seat, with divisions between the two largest groups in the European Parliament resurfacing over a matter sensitive to both. At stake is maintaining the 2035 time horizon for the ban on internal combustion engines, as set out in the EU Commission’s original proposal. The EPP wants to eliminate the timetable, which S&D would like to keep.

“We can only meet the climate change challenge if we allow all engines after 2035,” Manfred Weber, leader of the EPP group and chairman of the People’s Party, urges. Translated: “After 2035, all engines must be allowed to be sold, including traditional ones,” not just all those that technological progress allows and will allow, he points out. Then he adds: “Don’t ask politics which technology to choose. It is up to the market and consumers.”

This is the EPP’s definitive break with the work of the first von der Leyen Commission, and a demonstration of how and to what extent von der Leyen herself is under siege by her own party. Weber’s words, however, inevitably triggered reactions from Iratxe Garcia Perez, the Socialists’ group leader. “If it’s about introducing flexibility, it’s fine; if it’s about safeguarding jobs, it’s fine. But is the future of cars to continue with the protection of combustion engines?” she asked in a provocative way at the end of the parliamentary proceedings. “Our negotiating basis is clear: flexibility, keeping the 2035 target.” 

For the Socialist group leader, the revision of the automotive sector’s sustainability rules becomes another opportunity to mount a head-on attack on the EPP and its leader. “The Conservatives (ECR), Weber, and the European Commission only know how to simplify, but the recipe cannot be deregulation alone. Weber chases the extreme right.”

The attack from the Socialists is no coincidence, all the more so since from the Conservative front, the ECR co-chair, Patryk Jaki, openly takes sides with the EPP, sealing their convergence and alignment. “We want the elimination of the ban on combustion engines from 2035,” he spells out. “For us, freedom is serious, and people must be able to choose the car they want.” Roughly, the message of the EPP.

If the EPP joins forces with the ECR on cars and engines, the Socialists find their allies in the Greens for the sustainability battle. “We don’t help the industry by creating uncertainty,” Bas Eickout, co-chairman of the Greens, scolds. “The future is electric; von der Leyen said so in
her State of the Union address. If a few groups don’t like it, it only creates uncertainty.”