Merkel promises to consider "blue placard" for low-emission vehicles during next term

BERLIN, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Germany's next government will consider creating a "blue placard" to ban vehicles with high emissions levels from heavily-populated areas, chancellor Angela Merkel's (CDU) official spokesperson Steffen Seibert told press on Wednesday.

"This topic will be addressed at once by the new federal government", Seibert said.

The spokesperson for the chancellery hereby responded to questions whether Berlin would continue to resist a "blue placard" after the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that cities could imposing driving bans on certain types of diesel vehicles to reduce nitrogen oxide pollution.

Growing calls for such radical action have gained renewed momentum in Germany 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 harmful nitrogen oxide emissions. The EU has threatened to sue Germany before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) unless the situation is addressed swiftly.

Under a "blue placard" system proposed in the wake of the "dieselgate" scandal, only cars with relatively low emissions levels would be allowed to enter cities and towns. Several municipal governments have demanded the creation of such federal legislation to prevent a patchwork of regional driving ban policies which would be difficult to enforce in practice.

Seibert promised on Wednesday that the new government would act to quell such fears by entering consultations with state and municipal authorities as soon as it had completed an evaluation of Tuesday's landmark verdict by the Federal Administrative Court.

However, Merkel's speaker emphasized that it was still the goal of the government to prevent outright bans where possible.

"We anticipate that the majority of cities whose emissions levels moderately exceed clean air regulations can solve the problem without any driving bans", Seibert articulated the views of the chancellor and her acting cabinet on the subject.

The acting transport minister Christian Schmidt (CSU) in particular has emerged as a prominent opponent of driving bans, prompting criticism that German officials maintained excessively close and amicable ties with the country's powerful automotive industry. Enditem