28th Sep 2018 15:54
BERLIN (Alliance News) - The German government, the car industry and environmental campaigners have been locked in a battle over diesel cars that edged closer to a conclusion on Friday.
The coalition government wants to avoid seeing more cities adopt measures to ban older diesel vehicles - which emit harmful nitrogen dioxide gas - from city centres but is divided on how to tackle the issue.
A meeting at the offices of German Chancellor Angela Merkel saw ministers on a "good path" towards common ground, government sources told dpa, adding that there were still questions to be resolved ahead of the Monday meeting, when a decision is expected.
Limited measures to ban older and dirtier diesel cars from certain streets are in the works in some cities, but have only taken force so far in one, the northern port city of Hamburg.
The south-western city of Stuttgart is due to put a similar ban in place in early 2019. Ninety German cities breached EU levels for air quality in 2016, and 66 cities did in 2017.
Merkel's junior coalition partner, the centre-left SPD, has insisted that carmakers bear some of the cost of reducing pollution, and undertake retrofitting of older diesel vehicles.
Government sources previously told dpa of "very attractive" proposals for enabling the exchange of older vehicles for newer ones or making older diesel engines cleaner, possibly through higher premiums for car owners.
Both Merkel and Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer have indicated that they would like carmakers to cover a significant share of the costs.
The reputation of the German automotive industry has taken a hit since 2015, after it came to light that Volkswagen had been using emissions-cheating software during testing to make their cars appear less polluting. Other German carmakers have since suffered similar accusations.
Scheuer is currently in negotiations with Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW.
"Carmakers now have the chance to win back trust with customer-friendly models," Scheuer said before Friday's meeting.
Overnight, the Spiegel news magazine reported that Volkswagen has made concessions to Scheuer on the costs for retrofitting old diesel cars.
VW declined to comment on the report, which said that VW chief executive Herbert Diess had agreed to make a substantial financial contribution to both retrofittings and an exchange programme to switch older vehicles for new ones.
Dozens of German cities currently exceed the EU recommended safe threshold for atmospheric concentration of NO2, which has been linked to diabetes and asthma.