German Federal Administrative Court approves enactment of driving bans by cities

BERLIN, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) — The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has
approved the unilateral enactment of municipal driving bans for certain
types of diesel vehicles in landmark ruling for German cities on Tuesday.

The judges hereby rejected legal appeals launched by the states of
North-Rhine Westphalia and Baden-Wuerttemberg after the cities of Stuttgart
and Duesseldorf were successfully sued by the German environmental
organization “German Environmental Relief” (DUH) for failing to
sufficiently protect citizens from traffic-related pollution.While the
ruling cannot impose driving bans itself, it empowers municipal authorities
to do so out of their own initiative in order to lower levels of nitrogen
oxide emissions.The states of North-Rhine Westphalia and Baden-Wuerttemberg
had argued unsuccessfully that the removal of diesel vehicles from traffic
could only occur on the basis of new federal legislation which applied
equally across Germany.”We have enforced the possibility of diesel bans
from today onwards”, the victorious DUH director Juergen Resch told press
after the court announcement.

Growing calls for such radical action were first heard in Germany in the
wake of the global “dieselgate” scandal and gained renewed momentum after
Berlin admitted that at least 20 German cities would fail to comply with
European Union (EU) limits for nitrogen oxide emission levels by
2020.According to the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA), diesel cars are
responsible for more than 50 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions. Human
exposure to this form of air pollution has been associated with pulmonary
diseases in several medical studies. The EU has threatened to sue Germany
before the European Court of Justice (CFEU) unless the situation is
addressed swiftly.The verdict by the Federal Administrative Court on
Tuesday now will force the cities of Stuttgart and Duesseldorf to re-assess
their adequacy of their proposed measures to comply with binding EU clean
air regulations. However, the ruling also makes allowance for transition
phases and exceptional circumstances which at least partially relieve
affected cities of their legal duty to impose bans.

In the case of Stuttgart specifically, the court mandated evaluating a
phased introduction of driving bans which would affect older diesel
vehicles first. The presiding judge Andreas Korbmacher noted that cities
would not be responsible for financially compensating the owners of cars
whose value depreciated as a result.”Certain losses in value must be
accepted”, Korbmacher said. He added that it was within the power of state
governments to prevent a “patchwork” of regulations by establishing unified
standards for their respective regions.German media recently reported that
the federal government in Berlin wants to enact new legislation within the
course of the year which would empower municipal governments to impose
driving bans which only apply to selected roads as opposed to cities and
towns as a whole.However, the proposal falls far short of demands by German
cities for the creation of a nation-wide, and hence more
easily-enforceable, “blue placard” which would grant cars with relatively
low emissions privileged access to areas with high population density. – XINHUA