Hamburg to maintain diesel bans until Berlin enforces retrofits
By Jan Schwartz and Riham Alkousaa
HAMBURG/BERLIN (Reuters) - Hamburg, Germany's second largest city with a population of some 1.8 million, will uphold a ban on older diesel cars from two streets until air quality improves or Chancellor Angela Merkel's government enforces vehicle retrofits.
Germany's top administrative court ruled in February that Stuttgart, home to Daimler and Porsche, and Duesseldorf should consider such a ban.
Jens Kerstan, Hamburg's Senator for the Environment said on Thursday that the bans will be maintained until the federal government gets automakers to install new emissions cleaning systems in older diesel cars, which the manufacturers oppose.
Merkel's Social Democrat coalition partners have repeatedly called for hardware fixes as a means to tackle diesel pollution but Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer of the Christian Social Union, the sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats opposes such action.
"It's our goal and our responsibility to protect the citizens against harmful exhaust gases," Kerstan, a member of the Green Party, said at a press briefing.
The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) said hardware retrofits were complicated and needed years of development, suggesting that software refits made more sense.
"Manufacturers are equipping millions of diesel cars with new engine software. This will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions 25 to 30 percent on average," a VDA spokesman told Reuters.
Critics expect the restrictions to shift toxic nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions to adjacent streets as drivers of older diesel cars find other routes, while policing the bans will be hard if the cars are not labelled in some way.
"Many other streets in Hamburg with even higher pollution levels got excluded from the bans," one environmental activist said on condition of anonymity, adding that politicians were only acting in order to avoid potential fines.
Germany and five other European states face possible fines for violating air quality standards after the European Commission said this month it would take them to the region's highest court over the matter.
Of Hamburg's 4,000 kilometre road network, only 2.2 kilometres are affected by the bans, Kerstan said.
(Reporting by Jan Schwartz; Additional reporting by Riham Alkousaa in Berlin; Writing by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Alexander Smith)
