Starting in 2035, cars with combustion engines will no longer be registered in Poland. The EU has adopted a restrictive regulation, although the Polish government did not agree.

After 2035, there will be a revolution in the EU regarding the ban on combustion cars. In June 2022, the European Parliament decided on the change, adopting a position on new CO2 emission standards for cars and vans.

The new law will ban the production of combustion cars in EU countries from 2035. In the longer term, residents of member states will therefore have to switch to electric cars, which emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Poland did not agree with this provision.

“Poland voted against the ban on the sale of new combustion cars after 2035”, wrote Climate and Environment Minister Anna Moskwa on Twitter on Tuesday. She further expressed her belief that the plans in 2026 will be reviewed in this regard.

“Non-transparent and informal discussions, where Germany is pushing for solutions that mainly benefit its market, shows that this has nothing to do with a fair transition”, she assessed, adding that only the market and societies, not EU compulsion, should be the deciding factors in choosing technology for the next decades.

According to Minister Moscow, the entry into force of such a provision is “unrealistic”, and the topic is raising many sceptical voices.

“We are convinced that this 2035 is too early, premature and not based on sound analyses. Just as we were against it in the earlier stages, we will block this document together with other countries in the next stages of the work. Apart from us, a large part of the countries of the southern bloc of our neighbours also believe that this is too ambitious and too early for such discussions and declarations,” the minister said before the EU decision.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński