German government has no plans for autobahn speed limit

Germany's federal government does not plan to impose a general speed limit on the country's autobahn network, said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson Steffen Seibert during a regular press conference. “It’s also not in the coalition treaty” and there are “more intelligent steering options”, Seibert told journalists in Berlin. The government would wait for the recommendations by the National Platform Future of Mobility (NPE), set up to make suggestions on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, and then examine these. “Of course we have to reduce emissions in the transport sector,” said Seibert. A spokesperson of the environment ministry said that his ministry does not see a general speed limit as a good instrument for climate action.

An internal working paper drafted by the mobility commission had stirred public controversy. German transport minister Andreas Scheuer, whose own ministry had appointed the commission, swiftly dismissed its proposals for a motorway speed limit and fuel tax hikes. Germany’s transport sector is the only area that has not reduced its greenhouse gas emissions at all since 1990. Emissions increased by two percent between 1990 and 2016. The National Platform Future of Mobility mirrors the procedure of Germany’s coal exit commission and is to suggest measures for emission reductions that can become part of climate action law package later this year.