The ban on the sale of new gas or diesel cars in the EU from 2035 “makes no sense” and the Italian government will work to “correct” it, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Wednesday.
“Reducing polluting emissions is the path we want to follow, but with common sense,” Meloni said in a speech to the Italian parliament ahead of the EU leaders’ summit starting Thursday.
“The green perspective has been pursued even at the cost of sacrificing entire production and industrial sectors, such as the automotive industry,” Meloni added, criticizing the 2035 measure she said would “condemn [Europe] to new strategic dependencies, such as China’s electric [vehicles].”
“To argue otherwise was simply an ideological madness that we will work to correct,” Meloni said. Reducing pollution should not be done “at the expense of economic and social sustainability, [but] defending and promoting European production and safeguarding tens of thousands of jobs.”