BERLIN, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- German municipal authorities urged the country's federal government on Thursday to act fast in implementing a new "dieselgate" policy package which was recently unveiled.
"The implementation must now occur swiftly and unbureaucratically", Gerd Landsberg, executive director of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) on Thursday.
The measures were agreed by the ruling "grand coalition" following lengthy cabinet consultations and aim at reducing nitrogen oxide emissions (NOx) in urban centers without necessitating outright diesel driving bans.
Landsberg emphasized that the success of the measures would hereby also hinge on the willingness of German carmakers to "assume their responsibility, including financially" with regards to technical retrofitting of affected vehicles.
The first-ever inclusion of technical retrofitting, or so-called "hardware upgrades", in which the government has dubbed the "concept for clean air and the protection of individual mobility in our cities", marks a major shift of tone in Berlin's response to the ongoing "dieselgate" crisis.
Hardware upgrades have been described as essential to achieve a significant reduction in NOx emissions without requiring driving bans by German minister for the environment Svenja Schulze and several national environmental groups. However, these upgrades had been previously resisted by transport minister Andreas Scheuer as well as the affected carmakers.
Volkswagen and Daimler have now surrendered their opposition to hardware upgrades on the premise that a certified procedure is created for car garages to facilitate the process. BMW, Opel as well as several international car manufacturers are still refusing to back the German government on the issue.
Additionally, Volkswagen has made its support for the most contentious part of the policy package conditional on the ability of Chancellor Angela Merkel to ensure the participation of all carmakers in the retrofitting programs.
Helmut Dedy, secretry general of the German Association of Cities, sharply criticized the lasting hesitancy of the automotive industry to cooperate with policymakers in lowering NOx pollution on Thursday.
"It is incomprehensible that a producer announces a few hours after the compromise that they will not participate in retrofitting", Dedy told the newspaper Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung.
Although he was generally confident that "grand coalition" concept would improve air quality, Dedy noted that it was unclear how quickly the new measures would produce concrete results and whether they would suffice to avert looming driving bans.
Germany's Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) has estimated that diesel cars are responsible for more than 50 percent of NOx emissions in the country. NOx levels currently exceed binding limits set in EU clean air legislation in several major German cities, prompting the European Commission to file an ongoing lawsuit against the federal government in Berlin at the European Court of Justice.
