Frankfurt: Germany hosts a debate on the future of diesel engines next week as pressure grows on the government and automakers to curb or ditch a technology tarred by a reputation for pollution and cheating.
The “national diesel forum” takes place in Berlin on Wednesday amid renewed suspicions of emissions-fixing and a clamour for diesel-powered vehicles to be banned from cities to reduce pollution.
“The reputation of cars ‘made in Germany’ risk being damaged and that’s something that would be dreadful,” said Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt in an interview with Bild daily.
“The automobile industry has driven itself into difficult territory” ... and it “has a responsibility to win back trust,” he added.
With its engineering prowess, profitability and role as an employment powerhouse, the car sector traditionally wields massive political clout in Germany.
But both parties in the governing coalition, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Martin Schulz and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU), are keeping the industry at arm’s length as September parliamentary elections loom.
“Mrs Merkel is trying to calm things down before the elections, that’s the main reason for this summit,” Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the CAR automobile research centre told ARD public television.
Breaking with a political habit of cosying up to carmakers -- which provide more than 800,000 jobs in Germany’s largest industrial sector -- Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said Thursday that overfamiliarity had been a mistake, as it allowed company bosses to believe they were untouchable.
Hendricks and Dobrindt will lead a summit packed with carmakers active in Germany, including VW with its Audi and Porsche subsidiaries, Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler, BMW, Opel and Ford, whose European HQ stands in Cologne.
