Brussels Softens the 2035 Combustion Engine Line, and the Signal Is the Story
A subtle but meaningful shift is emerging from Brussels around one of Europe’s most symbolic transport policies. According to discussions now circulating at the level of the European Commission, the long-promised 2035 cutoff—intended to end the sale of new cars with CO₂-emitting combustion engines—may no longer be treated as a hard edge. Instead of an absolute stop, policymakers are considering a framework that would allow carmakers to continue producing a limited number of petrol and diesel vehicles beyond that date. It’s not a dramatic reversal, and it’s certainly not a return to business as usual, but it does mark a tonal change. The deadline that once sounded final is starting to look more conditional, more political, and more responsive to industrial realities than many expected.
The original regulation was always more precise than the shorthand suggested: it targeted tailpipe emissions, not engines themselves. Still, the message over the past few years was clear enough—internal combustion was approaching its endgame. What has changed since then isn’t the science behind emissions reduction, but the environment in which the policy must operate. Electric vehicle adoption has progressed unevenly across the continent, charging infrastructure remains inconsistent outside major markets, and automakers are grappling with higher costs, slower demand growth, and intensifying competition. Against that backdrop, a rigid cliff in 2035 has begun to look less like visionary leadership and more like a potential self-inflicted shock to Europe’s automotive ecosystem.
This recalibration matters because transport policy doesn’t just influence showroom floors; it ripples through supply chains, labor markets, and long-term investment decisions. Fleets plan in decades, not election cycles. Fuel infrastructure, service networks, and residual values all react early to regulatory signals. By floating the idea of a post-2035 allowance—however small—Brussels is implicitly admitting that transitions in road transport are rarely clean or linear. For manufacturers, it offers a degree of flexibility to manage product lines and capital expenditure. For operators and fleet owners, it reduces the fear of abrupt obsolescence. At the same time, it introduces ambiguity, and ambiguity has its own cost. When rules soften once, the market starts to price in the possibility that they could soften again.
There’s also an unmistakable geopolitical undertone to the discussion. Europe’s push toward electrification is unfolding in a world where global competition is intensifying, particularly from manufacturers able to scale EV production quickly and cheaply. Allowing a narrow continuation of combustion-engine vehicles can be read as industrial pragmatism—an attempt to balance climate ambition with competitiveness and social stability. Critics will call it backpedaling, supporters will call it realism, and both sides have a point. What’s clear is that the narrative around transport decarbonization is evolving from bold, fixed endpoints toward a more negotiated, adaptive path.
The real story, then, isn’t whether petrol and diesel survive in small numbers after 2035. It’s that Europe is quietly acknowledging the complexity of transforming a system as vast and interconnected as road transport. Deadlines still matter, but so do footnotes, exemptions, and transitional mechanisms. As this debate unfolds, those details—often overlooked, sometimes dismissed—are likely to shape how the next decade of mobility actually plays out on Europe’s roads.