SPD frontrunner Schulz says inner-city diesel bans make no sense

Martin Schulz, the Social Democrats’ (SPD) frontrunner for Germany’s 2017 federal elections, has suggested that the country’s carmakers should not fear a major attack on their diesel technology if he is elected Chancellor in September, Markus Mayr reports for Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The diesel engine will still be needed for some time to come,” Schulz said while visiting a factory of Audi, of which a former employee was recently arrested for allegedly helping to create emissions fraud software, Mayr writes. Schulz also said diesel bans in inner cities made no sense. This contradicted his fellow SPD politician Dieter Reiter, the mayor of Munich, who recently pondered such a ban to curb particulate matter pollution.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW dossier Vote2017 – German elections and the Energiewende for more information.