Von der Leyen’s German party still wants to kill EU combustion engine ban

BRUSSELS — Germany’s conservatives want to scrap the EU's combustion engine phaseout, a signature policy of the party's lead candidate going into June's European elections. 

Last year, the bloc adopted legislation banning the sale of new cars running on combustion engines from 2035, as proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

But Germany's Christian Democrats promised to repeal the law in their draft EU election program, obtained by Berlin Playbook — putting von der Leyen, whom it has endorsed as its lead candidate ahead of the bloc-wide elections, in an awkward position.

“We want to abolish the ban on combustion engines, and preserve Germany's cutting-edge combustion engine technology and develop it further in a technology-neutral way. Synthetic fuels play a central role in this,” the draft program reads. 

In contrast, the Christian Democrats' political family, the European People’s Party (EPP), decided to drop a similar call from its manifesto.

The final version, which party members are expected to adopt at this week’s congress in Bucharest, no longer contains a line on scrapping the combustion engine ban.

The EPP congress, held on March 6-7, is also expected to endorse von der Leyen as the political family’s overall lead candidate for Commission president.