German government in crisis over EU ban on car combustion engines

A Greenpeace protest at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin against Germany’s blockade of the EU internal combustion engine phase-out. Photograph: Clemens Bilan/EPA

A clash over climate protection measures is threatening to unravel Germany’s three-party governing alliance, after the Green party accused its liberal coalition partners of gambling away the country’s reputation by blocking a EU-wide phase-out of internal combustion engines in cars.

“You can’t have a coalition of progress where only one party is in charge of progress and the others try to stop the progress,” the country’s vice-chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck, said at a meeting of the Green party’s parliamentary group in Weimar on Tuesday.