BERLIN, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- The city of Frankfurt must ban certain types of highly-polluting diesel vehicles from its streets in order to improve local air quality, the Wiesbaden administrative court ruled on Wednesday evening (CET).
The judges hereby sided with the German Environmental Relief group (DUH) in a closely-watched lawsuit which the non-governmental organization (NGO) had filed against the Hesse state government. In its verdict, the Wiesbaden administrative court agreed with the DUH that existing clean air regulations in Germany's fifth largest city were insufficient to protect citizens from health risks posed by nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.
As a consequence, state authorities were ordered to pass legislation to prohibit diesel vehicles with "Euro4" and older motor classifications, as well as "Euro1" and "Euro2" petroleum vehicles from entering the Hesse regional capital as of February 2019. The ban will also apply to more recent "Euro5" diesel vehicles from September 2019 onwards.
Presiding judge Rolf Hartman argued that the driving ban had become necessary because all other measures considered by the state government would fail to produce an "effective reduction of NOx emissions" within an acceptable timeframe. "We must realize that this (case) is about the dangers to the health of us all", Hartmann said.
The Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) estimates that diesel vehicles are responsible for more than 50 percent of harmful NOx emissions in Germany, the actual pollution levels of which were previously often obscured by carmakers' installation of illicit defeat devices in the ongoing "dieselgate" scandal. In light of the repeated failure of several German cities to comply with binding European Union (EU) limits on urban NOx levels, the Federal Administrative Court ruled in February that municipal governments could impose their own driving bans to address the situation.
Even prior to the conclusion of trial on Wednesday, the Wiesbaden court had signalled that it would not shy away from forcing Frankfurt to make use of the right which was granted to German cities in the earlier landmark ruling. Hartmann urged the Hesse government to elaborate a new air pollution control plan with concrete emissions limits and deadlines to ensure that NOx levels began to fall again in the city as soon as 2020.
However, the city of Frankfurt expressed disappointment at the looming prospect of court-ordered driving bans. "The citizens and cities are now being made to pay for the failures of the automotive industry and the federal government", municipal traffic minister Klaus Oesterling (SPD) complained. Oesterling demanded financial assistance from the state- and federal government in implementing the verdict, not least with view to the required modernization of a fleet of roughly 340 busses used for public transportation.
By contrast, the DUH welcomed the development as "clearing the path to clean air." The group has filed similar lawsuits to achieve bans in most of the 67 German cities where NOx emissions continue to exceed EU limits.
Growing pressure to act on polluting diesel vehicles is now also being exerted on German authorities from abroad. The Brussels-based EU Commission is in the process of suing the federal government in Berlin before the European Court of Justice for long-standing national non-compliance with the bloc's clean air legislation.
Earlier, Hamburg became the first city in Germany to impose an at least partial driving ban on older diesel vehicles on two centrally-located district of Altona. According to the UBA, driving bans in German cities could only realistically be averted if older diesel vehicles undergo comprehensive technical retro-fitting efforts resisted as too costly and complicated by carmakers and federal transport minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU).
