I In these turbulent times it is reassuring to be able to rely on a constant: the German automotive industry can largely determine the position of the government. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and his finance minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) lobbied in Brussels to overturn the ban on new registrations of internal combustion engine vehicles from 2035. They were successful: the EU Commission proposed on Tuesday that car manufacturers reduce the CO2 emissions of their new-car fleets by only 90 percent instead of 100 percent. That is bad news for climate protection, but there is also good news: in Berlin the German car lobby can still flex its muscles – but in Brussels its long arm is increasingly powerless.
For Spain, France, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and their domestic lobby groups, backsliding is out of the question. Their companies are further along the path toward electromobility, building smaller, cheaper cars and being less dependent on exports. Looser climate targets would punish them for forward-looking thinking: worldwide the share of sold electric cars is rising, they are more efficient and reduce dependence on oil imports.
Therefore, part of the Commission’s compromise proposal is that additional CO2 emissions from combustion engines from 2035 must be offset, for example by automakers using climate-neutral steel. This also helps the steel industry, which for its green, somewhat more expensive product has too few buyers yet. In addition, the Commission wants to require companies to adopt more electric company cars and to reward the production of smaller electric cars. The combustion-engine ban is therefore not merely a capitulation to fossil-fuel corporations, but a reform that makes everything more complicated, but could perhaps be regarded as a success in ten years.
Correspondingly unhappy is the head of the German auto lobby association VDA, Hildegard Müller: “For the automotive location in Europe, for the economy, growth, and employment, today is not a good day,” she said. The Commission did not address the causes of Europe’s lack of competitiveness.
The Blame Was Never the Combustion-Engine Ban
She is right about that, but there is a reason: the falling profits of the car corporations were never due to the combustion-engine ban. It is the Chinese manufacturers who are taking away the throne from the German market leaders in China and worldwide. Their batteries are better, their prices lower. By trying to squeeze the last profits from their combustion-engine business, the German auto industry is foreclosing the future for itself and its workers.
In most EU countries people know that, and IG Metall also welcomes the Commission’s proposal. Plain talk from Berlin would do the boards in Munich, Stuttgart and Wolfsburg good. But for that, Merz and Klingbeil would have to muster the courage to trigger a genuine renewal of German industry and to put money on the table. So far there are no signs of that courage.
