E-fuel debate: Wissing apparently rejects EU compromise proposal

In the dispute between the Federal Ministry of Transport and the EU Commission over so-called e-fuels, FDP Minister Volker Wissing has apparently rejected a compromise proposal from the EU Commission. According to a report from Spiegel Online, citing a draft, this proposal envisaged the creation of a separate category of vehicles that could only be operated with e-fuels. These vehicles would have to be specifically designed for synthetic fuels and equipped with sensors to prevent the use of conventional fuels. This option was supposed to be included in a regulation on the technical details of emission standards from 2017. In this way, the Commission aimed to accommodate the FDP minister’s desire to allow models with combustion engines even after the official combustion engine phase-out in 2035. According to the report, Steffi Lemke's (Green) Ministry of Environment had already welcomed the proposal.

Currently, the EU law on the combustion engine phase-out is blocked in the Council of Ministers due to the abstention of Germany, along with the vetoes of Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and Austria. The Ministry of Transport is reportedly continuing to work on its own proposal. An initial version envisaged that the condition of being operable only with e-fuels would not have to be met at all. Instead, the ministry wanted to introduce a kind of compensation regulation similar to a previous concept called "g-tron" for electricity-generated natural gas at Audi, whereby manufacturers would pay a fee for the potential production of e-fuels over the lifetime of the vehicle. The car itself could then be operated with conventional fuel or a mix with e-fuels. Experts like Christian Hochfeld, head of the Berlin think tank Agora Verkehrswende, consider this too complicated, legally problematic, and far beyond the "recital" originally agreed upon in the EU law under pressure from the FDP. The solution is urgent, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had intended to resolve the dispute by the EU summit on Thursday and did not want to raise the issue in the coalition committee.