“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.
