MUNICH — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz opened the IAA auto show in Munich on Tuesday with a critique of the European Commission’s 2035 combustion engine ban.

“We need more flexibility in regulation,” he said. “Unilateral political commitments to specific technologies are fundamentally the wrong economic policy approach.”

The comments are a thinly veiled reference to the EU’s legislation, which forbids the sale of any new cars that emit CO2 from 2035, essentially banning the combustion engine — an unpopular move in Germany, home to some of the world’s biggest and most well-known car manufacturers.

The CEOs of some of these companies — BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen — sat in the front row, emphatically nodding and clapping at Merz’s remarks.

The issue is a crucial one for Berlin. Cars account for about 5 percent of Germany’s GDP but the industry is facing a triple whammy: a steep decline in sales in China that had been crucial to the bottom lines of German carmakers; a stumbling transition to electric vehicles that is leaving an opening for Chinese companies to make an entry into the European market; and chaos caused by Donald Trump’s car tariffs.

With the far-right Alternative for Germany neck-and-neck with the Christian Democrats in opinion polls, Merz is struggling to ensure a future for an industry that Germany has dominated for over a century, thanks to its engineering prowess. It’s a sector that also employs some 800,000 people in the country.

The argument is that flexibility on the EU’s targets would allow some of the traditional car industry to survive for just that little bit longer.

Days prior, the three German carmakers presented their latest models with a strong focus on electric vehicles as they look to compete with their Chinese peers that have so far had the upper hand with their tech-glitzed EVs.

BMW’s new all-electric iX3 SUV has 800 kilometers of range, making range anxiety “a thing of the past,” CEO Oliver Zipse told POLITICO in an interview.

Zipse and his fellow European executives are set to meet with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday for the next strategic dialogue for the sector, where they are expected to lobby for significant changes to the 2035 legislation.

They have political allies in making the plea.

Italian business minister Adolfo Urso is eager for the 2035 legislation to be overturned. The conservative European People’s Party in the European Parliament included reversing the ban in last year’s election platform.

Merz has taken a softer stance as a result of the coalition between his conservative Christian Democrats, which want the ban reversed, and the center-left Social Democrats, which argue the legislation needs to remain in place as part of a broader effort to tackle climate change.

But Merz had help in his plea from the other speakers on Tuesday, leaving no room for a different interpretation of his meaning.

“This ban is wrong. We need to remove it,” Markus Söder, the conservative premier of Bavaria, said ahead of the chancellor. “The CO2 goals of 2035 need to be adjusted to reality.”

Hildegard Müller, the head of Germany’s car lobby VDA, pushed for the group’s 10-point plan, which argues the 2035 legislation should change its target from 100 percent zero-emission vehicles to 90 percent and allow for other powertrains like hybrids and range extenders and make space for alternative fuels, the industry argues, also meet climate goals.

Those options would give an additional lease on life to the combustion engine.