Sahra Wagenknecht, member of the Bundestag, has announced that she will hold a vote in parliament on reversing the planned phase-out of combustion engines. “There is clearly a majority in the Bundestag against the phase-out of combustion engines. The BSW will hold a vote in the Bundestag on reversing the combustion engine ban,” said the chairwoman of the alliance, Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), to the dpa in Berlin. This would give the CDU/CSU and FDP the opportunity to put their words into action, she added.
The background is statements by CSU boss Markus Söder, who recently criticized the planned end to combustion engines in the EU. “The end of combustion engines for 2035 is wrong and must therefore be withdrawn,” Söder told “Bild am Sonntag”. It is absurd to shut down a functioning technology and leave it to other countries in the future.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing welcomed the call to reverse the ban on combustion engines at EU level. “Even those who wake up later are welcome to support when it comes to technology neutrality in the regulation of the vehicle industry,” said the FDP politician in the ARD program “Report from Berlin”.
Wagenknecht: Inexcusable, destroying this industry
“The Bundestag should call on the federal government to work at the European level to overturn the EU ban. The ban on combustion engines is the biggest wrong decision in industrial policy for Germany in recent decades,” said Wagenknecht. “It would be inexcusable to destroy this industry.”
The EU had agreed that from 2035 no new cars that run on petrol or diesel should be registered. Exceptions are being considered for so-called e-fuels, which do not pollute the atmosphere with additional CO2.
Wagenknecht for dealing objectively with the AfD
Wagenknecht also calls for an objective discussion with the AfD. “We shouldn’t do the AfD the favor of dealing with it carelessly,” said the co-chair of the alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) to the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”. Politicians like Björn Höcke and Maximilian Krah now dominate the party, but many voters would also see local representatives who were formerly in the CDU now in the AfD. “If we tell these voters that they are all Nazis, that is unbelievable,” said Wagenknecht. The BSW will be on the ballot in the upcoming elections in the East and in the European elections for the first time since it split from the “Die Linke” party.
