BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Member of the Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht has announced that she will put the planned phase-out of combustion engines to a vote in parliament. "There is obviously a majority in the Bundestag against the combustion car phase-out. The BSW will put the withdrawal of the ban on combustion engines to a vote in the Bundestag," said the chairwoman of the alliance, Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), to the German Press Agency in Berlin. This would give the CDU/CSU and FDP the opportunity to back up their words with action, she added.

The background to this are statements by CSU leader Markus Soder, who recently criticized the planned phase-out of combustion engines in the EU once again. "The 2035 ban on combustion engines is wrong and must therefore be withdrawn," Soder told Bild am Sonntag. It is absurd to shut down a functioning technology and leave it to other countries in future. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing had welcomed the call to roll back the phase-out of combustion engines at EU level. "Even those who wake up later are welcome to support us when it comes to technological neutrality in the regulation of the vehicle industry," said the FDP politician in the ARD program "Bericht aus Berlin".

"The Bundestag should call on the Federal Government to work at European level to overturn the EU ban. The ban on combustion engines is the biggest industrial policy mistake 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 should be registered that run on petrol or diesel. Exceptions are being considered for so-called e-fuels, which do not pollute the atmosphere with additional CO?