• A very viral message on Facebook claims that Italy has decided "not to respect this European madness to ban thermal cars in 2035".

  • Except that Italy has not taken the decision to disobey European legislation (and that the ban only concerns the sale of new thermal vehicles and not the circulation of these cars).

  • The Italian government, a coalition of far-right and right-wing parties, on the other hand, sharply criticized the agreement reached in October and reaffirmed its opposition through several shock exits.

Has Italy scored a point against the European Union about the end of the sale of thermal cars in 2035?

That's essentially the message of a post seen more than a million times on Facebook in recent days, from a screenshot of a tweet.

"Italy has just decided not to respect this European madness to ban thermal cars in 2035", it is written.


“The breach is open, others will follow”, enthuses the Internet user in this tweet dated December 16, 2022. In comments on Facebook, people share their joy: “Bravo to Italy, if only France dared follow the example!

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Except that Italy has not taken the decision to disobey European legislation (and that the ban only concerns the sale of new thermal vehicles and not the circulation of these cars).

The Italian government, a coalition of far-right and right-wing parties, on the other hand, sharply criticized the agreement reached in October and reaffirmed its opposition through several shock exits.



The Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, for example, declared to Bloomberg on December 5, 2022 that the end of the production of thermal cars in 2035 and that the new Euro 7 standards, which should apply to all private vehicles from 2025 to reduce air pollution, made "economic, environmental and social senselessness".

He also said a review of the details and timing of some EU policies had been discussed by ministers in Brussels.

“Posing the question forcefully” at European level

On December 29, during the traditional end-of-year press conference with the Italian chief executive, the subject was also discussed.

To the question: “Do you think that the European deadline of 2035 is reasonable and credible?

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, from the postfasic Fratelli d'Italia party, said that "no", stopping the production of heat engines in 2035 "was not reasonable".

“I consider this to be deeply harmful to our production system,” she continued.

It seems to me that this is a subject on which there is a consensus at Italian level and I intend to use this consensus to put the question forcefully” at European level.

From June 2022, under the previous government, the country, which wants to protect its automotive industry, led the revolt against Brussels' climate ambition.

The government of Mario Draghi then supported a proposal to delay the implementation of this ban until 2040.


On October 27, 2022, MEPs and EU Member States reached an agreement on European legislation which provides for the end of sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035, in favor of 100% electric vehicles.

The aim is to reduce automotive CO2 emissions to zero to contribute to the continent's objective of carbon neutrality by 2050.

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