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The EU changes course, the ban on combustion engines from 2035 is dropped

by AI | 19.Dec 2025 | Europe in brief AI

Twelve months after the start of talks with the crisis-hit automotive sector, the EU Commission is rewriting the emissions regulation, allowing car manufacturers to reduce tailpipe CO2 emissions by 90% from 2035 compared to 2021, no longer by 100% as currently planned.

In this photo taken on September 11, 2023, BYD electric cars waiting to be loaded onto a ship in the port of Suzhou, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. (Photo: AFP)

Brussels (ANSA) – Abrupt, although by now expected, U-turn by Brussels on the total ban on the sale of combustion engines from 2035. A halt that had become the symbol of a Green Deal increasingly under pressure from industries and governments. Twelve months after the start of dialogue with the crisis-hit automotive sector, the EU Commission is rewriting the regulation on emissions, allowing car manufacturers from 2035 to reduce CO2 exhaust emissions by 90% compared to 2021, no longer by 100% as currently planned.

The revision adopted in Strasbourg after intense discussions among the commissioners – which extended the time for presenting the package by a few hours – thus leaves room on the post-2035 market for the sale of vehicles with combustion engines, plug-in hybrids and range extenders, not only electric or hydrogen-powered.

The automotive giants will have to offset that remaining 10% of emissions through ‘credits’ that they will be able to accumulate by using low-emission steel ‘made in Europe’ for vehicle construction or by using sustainable fuels, such as e-fuels and advanced biofuels. Provided – specifies the Berlaymont building – that they are not food-based biofuels. According to EU estimates, a share of 30-35% of vehicles on the post-2035 market will be allowed to be not fully electric.

“Europe remains at the forefront of the global transition towards a clean economy,” assured the head of the EU executive Ursula von der Leyen, as if to reassure that the revision will not undermine the EU’s transition goals. What came from Strasbourg is, however, a “breach in the wall of ideology”, in the words of the minister for enterprises and made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, who claimed Rome’s role in carrying forward the battle on the principle of technological neutrality, now recognized in the revised rules.

However, “too little”, according to the president of Confindustria, Emanuele Orsini, who presses the EU to “stop doing things halfway: they must do things and today they are not doing them”. Stellantis considers the choice a first step that, however, “does not significantly address the issues the sector is facing”, particularly for commercial vehicles, while the support for small cars is appreciated (16 December).