Fate of diesel engines worries German car cos
TRACKING Top officials meet German politicians, cite job figures for consideration
Berlin, Aug. 2: Bosses of Germany’s car industry and top politicians meet Wednesday on the fate of diesel engines, as the sector faces an existential threat after a colossal pollution cheating scandal and new allegations of collusion.
With major cities also eyeing partial bans on diesel vehicles to fight deadly smog, more than 8 lakh jobs hang in the balance as carmakers desperately need a strategy.
Two months before a general election, both parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-left grand ruling coalition are in no mood to mollycoddle an industry that is fast losing popularity.
Transport minister Alexander Dobrindt, a member of Ms Merkel’s Bavarian allies CSU, said on Wednesday that “the automobile industry has steered itself onto difficult terrain”.
“I find it dreadful that the ‘Cars made in Germany’ brand has been dragged into such a situation,” he told Passauer Neue Presse daily.
Ms Merkel was more nuanced, as she noted the huge number of jobs at stake. “The car industry is of strategic importance ... it must be strong and innovative but also honest. So it’s about criticising what needs to be criticised, but to do so while bearing in mind that it’s a strategically important industry in Germany,” said her spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer on Monday.
The first cracks in the oftvaunted sector emerged in September 2015, when Volkswagen admitted installing illegal devices in millions of vehicles worldwide to rig pollution emissions readings. But suspicions of similar cheating have since widened to other German carmakers.
In July, Spiegel magazine heaped on further pressure as it published details of a VW letter to German and European competition authorities which it said showed that auto giants colluded on technology, suppliers, costs, sales and markets since the 1990s.
Adding to the clouds hanging over the industry, a court in Stuttgart — the home city of Mercedes and Porsche — ruled that only a partial ban on diesel vehicles would be effective at clearing the air of poisonous nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.
Germany has already been warned by the EU over its air quality, and now public opinion is starting to swing in favour of outlawing diesel.
A survey commissioned by Greenpeace found that 57 per cent of Germans back such a ban in cities with poor air quality.
On Wednesday, Greenpeace activists hung a banner screaming “Welcome to Fort NOx” at the transport ministry as protesters marched outside, forcing organisers of the diesel meeting to move it to the interior ministry.