{"id":34721,"date":"2017-09-05T06:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T05:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=34721"},"modified":"2017-09-08T11:13:26","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T10:13:26","slug":"lobbying-data-reveals-carmakers-influence-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2017\/09\/05\/lobbying-data-reveals-carmakers-influence-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Lobbying data reveals carmakers’ influence in Berlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Car industry lobbyists have met with the German government to discuss the VW dieselgate scandal and pollutant emissions more than once every two days since the scandal broke in 2015, official data shows.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The level of access to top officials has raised concerns about the influence of the\u00a0car lobby in Berlin, just as the 24 September federal\u00a0election is\u00a0forcing party leaders to confront diesel pollution.<\/p>\n

At a meeting with city leaders in the capital on Monday, chancellor Angela Merkel\u00a0pledged to double<\/span><\/a>\u00a0a \u20ac500m government-industry fund to help local councils rein back soaring emissions that have sparked European court action and over 50 city lawsuits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Critics see the proposed\u00a0car software upgrades and urban transport improvements as a palliative to block calls for comprehensive – and expensive – hardware retrofits. <\/span>This view may be strengthened by news of the auto industry’s extensive access.<\/span><\/p>\n

Public unease<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>with Germany’s auto industry has grown, as the revelations that VW\u00a0stacked\u00a0its software to cheat emissions tests were followed by allegations that it colluded with Daimler and BMW in\u00a0cartel-like behaviour<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Germany’s auto industry directly employs\u00a0around<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0775,000 workers<\/span><\/span>, and turns over\u00a0more than \u20ac400bn<\/span><\/a>\u00a0per year, accounting for\u00a0roughly a fifth of Germany’s exports<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the process.\u00a0<\/span>This economic gravity means carmakers maintain a mighty pull on politicians\u00a0across the country.<\/p>\n

Exclusive:<\/strong> EU \u2018increasingly likely\u2019 to implement electric car quota<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Evincing this, several top advisors and government officials have either come from or gone to work for carmakers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Merkel’s\u00a0re-election campaign is\u00a0being spearheaded by\u00a0Joachim Koschnicke<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0a\u00a0former chief lobbyist for the car maker Opel, while\u00a0Michael Jansen and Thomas Steg<\/span><\/a>\u00a0– who served as Merkel’s federal office director, and deputy\u00a0government\u00a0speaker – now work as senior\u00a0VW\u00a0lobbyists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eckart von Klaeden<\/a><\/span>, a state minister for Merkel until 2013 became Daimler’s chief lobbyist,\u00a0while\u00a0Matthias Wissmann, a transport minister under the former chancellor Gerhard Schroder, is currently president of the German automobile industry association.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even Sigmar Gabriel,\u00a0a\u00a0respected SPD economic minister, sat on the VW supervisory board for four years while he was premier of the state of Lower Saxony, which holds a 20% stake in VW.<\/span><\/p>\n

His successor, Stephan Weil, sparked controversy last month, when the German newspaper\u00a0Bild revealed<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>that he showed\u00a0a draft parliamentary speech about dieselgate to VW management before delivering it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the VW scandal broke\u00a0in 2015, government officials have held 387 meetings with auto lobbyists about dieselgate and pollution, compared to 113 meetings with trade unions and\u00a0just\u00a059 with environmental and consumer groups. The data, seen by Climate Home, was released in\u00a0response to a parliamentary question.<\/span><\/p>\n

The German government and car industry both\u00a0declined to comment on the release.<\/p>\n

The content of these meetings is unknown and\u00a0contact between government would be expected to maintain contact with an important\u00a0industry.\u00a0<\/span>But dieselgate and the continuing non-compliance of the car industry lend credence to NGO claims that access\u00a0equals\u00a0inaction. Only around 10% of German cars meeting current ‘Euro 6’ NOx emission limits,\u00a0according to a new study<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel Freund, a spokesman for Transparency International told Climate Home\u00a0said that\u00a0state\u00a0oversight had\u00a0\u201ccollapsed\u201d\u00a0under the weight of industry pressure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are no longer exaggerating if we say that the German government and regulatory agencies supposed to control and oversee the car industry have been captured,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Timo Lang, a spokesman for the NGO Lobbycontrol said the data evinced a \u201cstriking imbalance that clearly illustrates the close ties between Germany’s government and the automotive industry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThose close ties were a part of the problem leading up to the dieselgate scandal.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Analysis:<\/strong> Fiat, Renault, VW scams will hasten rise of electric car<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Official figures<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>for 2017 show that Merkel’s CDU party received \u20ac100,000 from Daimler, \u20ac100,002\u00a0from Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt, the owners of BMW,\u00a0and\u00a0\u20ac110,000 from\u00a0the metal and electrical industry association in northern Westphalia,\u00a0which partly represents the car industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hard right FDP also banked \u20ac195,502 from\u00a0auto lobby groups, and\u00a0Martin Schulz’s\u00a0SPD took \u20ac100,000 from Daimler.<\/span><\/p>\n

However these figures may underestimate the car manufacturers’ largesse as they\u00a0only cover direct donations – rather than sponsorships, which the auto industry increasingly prefers.\u00a0In Brussels, VW alone spent \u20ac3.3m in lobby activities in 2014,\u00a0according to Lobbyfacts<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Freund said\u00a0such quids carried an expectation of pro quo’s – perhaps in the form of an open door policy for meetings with officials. \u201cIf they didn’t expect that, it would almost be a market failure,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe companies are constantly optimising shareholder value and ensuring that they make money for their investors. If they went around giving money to parties for nothing in return, I think someone might question that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On Sunday night, dieselgate was again at the centre of the\u00a0election campaign, with\u00a0the SPD leader Martin Schulz calling\u00a0for industry CEO’s\u00a0to pay the price of the test-rigging scandal<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in a TV debate\u00a0with Merkel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schulz has tried to make hay with the issue on the campaign trail, assailing\u00a0Merkel\u00a0for\u00a0blocking collective lawsuits against VW<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0calling for an\u00a0an EU-wide quota<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>on electric cars.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, after Merkel responded in mid-August by agreeing that\u00a0diesel’s days were numbered<\/span><\/a>, Schulz\u00a0toned down his rhetoric, saying that diesel would be around for \u201cmuch longer\u201d than people expected.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Climate Weekly:<\/strong>\u00a0Sign up for your essential climate news update<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The German SPD MEP and former environment committee chair Jo Leinen told Climate Home that Schulz’s \u201cbacktracking\u201d had made him look \u201cweak\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the trade unions got in contact with him to say: ‘hello, not so fast. We will have that transformation but it will take a long time,’\u201d said Leinen. \u201cDiesel is a bit of an ambiguous issue for the SPD. The Green party will always be more radical so we cannot win with the electorate on that front.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The European commission is\u00a0currently assessing<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>whether a deal between the German government and carmakers to provide software updates for 5.3 million German motorists addresses the air quality and legal ramifications of dieselgate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The agreement would reduce NOx emissions by up to 30%, but environmentalists in Germany are holding out for a more comprehensive – and expensive – hardware retrofit option.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dorothee Saar, a spokeswoman for environmental NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), which is pursuing 16 legal cases against the German government for breaching air quality limits, said judicial rulings supporting diesel bans in Stuttgart, Munich and Dusseldorf were forcing the government’s hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

She told Climate Home:\u00a0“Merkel’s announcement that she’d join a second diesel summit in October and her invitation to city leaders and federal ministers to come to Berlin on Monday shows that she sees an urgent need for action – and that the court decisions are not going in her favour.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a dieselgate-charged election approaches, data reveals German officials met with auto lobbyists more than once every two days to discuss the 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