The Diesel Mess, Continued

Most Germans were expecting a German Supreme Court decision today....on the diesel car business.

Basically, at around 3:30 PM....the court in Leipzig said they wanted another week (to 27 Feb) to decide on this issue.

The confrontation?  Based on particles in the air in two major urban cities (Stuttgart and Dusseldorf)....the two want to ban diesel cars from entering.  The case has risen to the highest level of Germany and threatens massive chaos either way.

What happened today?  Well....they sat and asked questions over European law, the Federal Immission Control Act, German highway regulation, how the ban would be carried and whether cities can have individual driving rules that relate ONLY to themselves and not other cities.

I've spent a fair amount of time looking at this whole German topic.

There are basically ten key features to the discussion:

1.  Around two decades ago, the Germans hyped up the environmental chat at the EU that there needed to be EU standards about pollution.  The EU, NOT Germany, made up some standards.  For the past ten years, there's been data collected and it kept suggesting serious problems relating back to diesel cars.  VW and the big makers of the diesel cars kept saying they were improving the engines and filtering system.  Well....VW and the rest got caught....total fabrication, and the EU collection data is correct. 

2.  By EU rules, everyone in the EU is entitled to have clean air. 

3.  Germans tend to have more diesel cars than other EU countries (go figure that one out).  The chief reason is that Germans tend to drive greater distances to reach their work-place, and the mileage made sense. 

4.  The cities (at least thirty of them and it grows virtually every month) say that they have the right to clean their air, and only by banning diesel cars...can you bring about clean air.

5.  The diesel car owners believe that they bought their cars with the ability to have value, and not be limited from entering cities.  Most believe if the cars are banned....they ought to be given full value for the car by the German government, because it can't be used. 

6.  If the ban occurs, how will diesel car owners be able to drive to work?  Generally, you hear a long silence at that point because most of the cities involved (Dusseldorf and Stuttgart) will utter the phrase of having public transportation but can't explain how tens of thousands would be thrown into the passenger system overnight. 

7.  The cops say they won't enforce a ban.  This may be true, but the cities have 'meter-maids' and parking monitors who wander around and could probably attach 50-Euro tickets onto each car. 

8.  Then, you come to the Berlin leadership.  Basically....it is non-existent.  No one can explain why they say little to nothing.  You would think that they'd be working up a solution, and they seem to be in absolute fear about where this is going.

9.  Why a German court is standing over an EU-regulation?  That's something that no one can explain either.  All of this should have gone onto the EU court in the first place. 

10.  Finally, this odd factor.  If you admit in the EU-court that these two cities can ban cars....could not every single city in the EU ban cars, for any reason?  Well.....yeah.  And that invites a long EU-type discussion which would typically infuriate most British folks and say it's one of a thousand reasons for BREXIT.  Adding to this....could a city say that all cars are banned and that only horse carriages and bikes are acceptable?  Well....yeah.  Not to be too cynical but this really opens up a big mess in the end.