Can the Union overturn the end of combustion engines?
Are people for or against the end of combustion engines in 2035? The CDU/CSU union asked this question in an online campaign and wants to use it to overturn the end of combustion engines. Is that even possible?
This news has made millions of drivers sit up and take notice: Shortly before the European elections, the CDU/CSU union is launching an internet campaign to EU combustion engine phase-out planned for 2035 should be tipped over!
On Friday morning (May 24, 2024), a voting campaign began on the CDU website in which people can cast their vote. The site’s motto is “Yes to the car – no to the combustion engine ban.” The CSU also has a corresponding page, although without the option to vote digitally – but the petition can be supported digitally by providing your address. The EU combustion engine ban passed by the European Parliament from 2035 must be withdrawn, the appeal states.
According to current plans, new cars with combustion engines will no longer be allowed to be registered in the EU from 2035 – unless the combustion engines operate CO2-neutral. The planned ban is intended to help the EU achieve its climate protection goals, especially in the transport sector, which regularly fails to meet its targets. CO2 emissions from new cars not recently – it even rose.
In PICTURE CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann referred to the technological lead in Germany: “We produce the most efficient engines in the world in Germany. The end of combustion engines is damaging the prosperity of our country. It is sawing off the branch we are sitting on.” Climate neutrality can only be achieved with technological openness.
“Blanket ban on combustion engines is wrong”
CSU General Secretary Martin Huber expressed similar views. “The blanket ban on combustion engines from 2035 is wrong,” said Huber in BILD. Climate protection requires technological openness rather than bans. “The combustion engine is the basis of our prosperity in Germany. It would be madness to simply ban this technology.”
Where can you vote digitally?
Specifically, the digital voting the question was asked: “Do you support the demand to repeal the ban on combustion engines?” The number of voters is growing continuously, here is the status as of Friday afternoon (May 24): While 77 percent of the 4,500 participants voted for and 23 percent against repealing the ban on combustion engines on Friday afternoon, the tables have turned – at 5 p.m., 74 percent of the 22,500 participants were against repealing the ban on combustion engines. Multiple votes are possible.
Campaign by CDU/CSU to postpone the end of combustion engines. The question is: “Do you support the demand to withdraw the combustion engine ban?” Here is the interim result on May 24, 2024, 5 p.m.
Image: Screenshot CDU.de
The CDU has been opposing the end of new combustion engines for some time. Most recently, Linnemann’s boss, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz, called for the ban on combustion engines to be lifted at an election campaign event in Saarland. He said: “This ban on combustion engines must be reversed because we do not know today what kind of mobility can be developed in a truly environmentally neutral and climate-friendly way in the future.”
Demand for technological openness
Accordingly, Merz insisted on technological openness on behalf of the CDU party leadership: “We must not presume to make political decisions today about which technologies will be the right ones in 10, 15 or 20 years so that we can maintain our prosperity and protect the climate appropriately.”
At the CDU party event, Merz also demanded that politicians create the framework conditions so that companies, engineers and research institutions – in other words, as he says, “the people who can do it” – can make the right decisions about products and technologies so that they can then be economically successful. “The quickest way to make this country climate-neutral is: we shut everything down. Then we’ll be climate-neutral tomorrow. But who really wants that?”
A motion by the CDU parliamentary group in the Bundestag goes in the same direction, from which the “Rheinische Post” reportsIn it, the group calls for “securing the future of the climate-friendly combustion engine without an end date”.
What are the chances of the campaign?
As things stand today, the prospects of overturning the combustion engine ban more than a decade before it comes into force are rather slim: a large majority of EU countries have spoken out in favour of it. The environment ministers of the 27 EU countries confirmed the end of combustion engines in spring 2024. And the EU’s fleet targets are in place: the CO2Emissions from passenger cars are to be reduced by 100 percent in 2035 compared to 2021, i.e. new cars must not emit any CO2 emit.
But: On the one hand, the Union is positioning itself as a party of combustion engine supporters ahead of the European elections and is thus trying to win votes. On the other hand, it could be that public pressure, even in individual countries, is making EU officials think twice. The pressure in this direction is certainly growing. Recently, several large car manufacturers have also publicly considered Deadline for the construction of combustion engines to push backwards.
An online vote for or against the combustion engine ban? On the surface, it is interesting to know what makes people tick. But how meaningful is the result? The survey is neither representative nor does it allow for more than a blunt yes or no. Can you get a real picture of opinion that way? I don’t think so. Moreover, the campaign could prove to be a dud: if the Union had expected an overwhelming majority to reverse the combustion engine ban, the absolute majority was recently against it. In other words: The combustion engine ban should stay, is the result.
