Organization in the criticism: Old diesel stand still, if it wants the environmental aid

Little time? At the end of the text there is a summary.

Lack of assertiveness can not be said to the German environmental aid now really. Now she has again won a driving ban for diesel cars before the Administrative Court of Wiesbaden, in Darmstadt, the judge recommended a settlement. "A good day for health protection in Hesse," said environmental aid director Jürgen Resch. Driving bans are the only effective measure for clean air.

Just last week, the Gelsenkirchen administrative court ordered Gelsenkirchen and Essen to impose driving bans on older diesel vehicles. For the first time, the restrictions should also apply to a motorway section - the affected A40, better known as the Ruhrschnellweg, is the lifeline of the entire region. Currently, the association complains in 29 cities for "clean air". In the coming months, five more procedures will be added.

The judgments - though for the most part not yet legally binding - already seem like thunder in the republic. The CDU-Verband Nordbaden-Württemberg even thinks about ways to deny the organization its charitable status.

In the meantime, the pressure of environmental aid is even having an effect on the motorists. Volkswagen and Daimler now even want to pay for hardware retrofits to engines and exhaust systems, although the money could be spent much more effective in their opinion.

What kind of organization is that, in the meantime, upsets half the republic? And what must the German environmental aid (DUH) fear? Answers to the most important questions.

What is the DUH?

The organization, which is committed to environmental and consumer protection, has existed since 1975. Originally, the DUH was intended to raise funds for the nature conservation organization BUND. Under the leadership of Resch, who became general manager in 1988, the DUH finally developed its own profile. It was only 16 years later that it developed true effectiveness as a consumer protection association entitled to file claims. Since 2008, the DUH may also draw on environmental issues before courts.

In the meantime, 100 full-time employees work in the offices in Berlin, Radolfzell and Hannover. The number of members indicates the club with 347. However, only a few of those involved have so far entered the open stage. Apart from Resch, only a managing director colleague Sascha Müller-Kraenner and research director Axel Friedrich, a former department head at the Federal Environment Agency, are known to a broad public.

What is the goal of the club?

First, it was about clean drinking water, the fish in the sea and the animals of the forest. Later on renewable energy and thermal insulation of buildings. The DUH also plays a large part in the introduction of the deposit for beverage cans.

The organization became aware of the diesel scandal. In the meantime, it appears that environmental aid has been dedicated to the fight against the diesel engine - with a series of lawsuits against municipalities and municipalities that can not handle the EU's limits on pollutants in the air.

DPA

Jürgen Resch

But in addition to the publicity activities, the DUH also fights in other areas. As consumer advocates, the organization is committed to ensuring that car dealers comply with their information requirements related to environmental protection. In principle makes sense - but the DUH postpones every insignificant misconduct and casts a sizeable amount of money, which then serves to finance the lawsuits against the cities.

How does the organization attract criticism?

The uncompromising approach of the DUH raises the question of whose interests it represents. The series of warnings against car dealers even for the slightest misconduct against the complicated labeling regulations remind some of the lucrative business model of Abmahnkanzleien.

The DUH also makes use of the right to take legal action against municipalities and municipalities in the name of the citizens without regard to the economic damage or other interests that are contrary to its purpose. DUH boss Resch sees himself as a kind of fifth force that enforces the protection of the environment, the health of people on the way. He takes little account of the consequences of his campaigns.

With such a campaign, for example, he forced the car industry in 2007 to equip old diesel cars with particulate filters. However, in order to burn the soot without residue, the engineers had to accept higher nitrogen oxide emissions. The increased values ​​but now takes the DUH as an opportunity to complain the diesel from the inner cities.

Resch earned criticism with his attack against BMW. The DUH had claimed to have caught the Munich in frauds in the exhaust test. The Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt found in subsequent tests but no proof of this. It is likely that the DUH testers had driven the objectionable BMW model with such high speed that the exhaust gas cleaning switched back.

How is the club financed?

The funding of the environmental aid also provides grounds for suspicion of critics. Their budgets are partly based on taxpayers' money, which ministries or the EU allocate to charitable organizations as subsidies. Another part, as already mentioned, comes from the business with warnings for which a DUH department is responsible. It collects around 2.5 million euros in fines each year - that's a good 30 percent of total revenues. The remainder of Resch's annual budget of around nine million euros comes from donors.

According to DUH, the major donors in 2016 included the Krombacher brewery, Deutsche Telekom, the natural food producer Rapunzel and several foundations. The exact sums are missing, as well as recent information. "But we are currently experiencing that some of our financial backers are being put under massive pressure - for example from the automotive industry", Resch explained in the "Zeit" the secrecy. Among the lenders, however, has been regularly for years, the Toyota Group, which even hardly sold diesel cars in Germany.

Another case occurred a good ten years ago, when environmental aid campaigned for soot particle filters in diesel vehicles - and at the same time took money from manufacturers of such particulate filters. Resch, however, denies any conflict of interest.

Is the DUH charitable?

Charitable or not? The parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport, Steffen Bilger, at the same time a representative of the e-mobile showpiece city of Ludwigsburg, wants to discuss the issue at the federal party conference in early December offensively - with the aim of the DUH deriving public interest. "We see the damage that DUH is inflicting on its actions - especially in our cities," he explains in the newspaper "Handelsblatt", referring to the situation in his region. Here are four of the 14 cities that are particularly polluted with nitrogen dioxide, and at the same time many people would have a job in the car industry.

However, experts consider the initiative to be hopeless. The question of charitable status is determined exclusively by the responsible tax office. And environment and health are generally understood as charitable goals.

In summary: The German environmental aid attracts criticism. In 2007, for example, the organization forced the auto industry to dismantle old diesels with diesel particulate filters, resulting in higher emissions of nitric oxide - and the increased values ​​have led the DUH to complain about diesel fuel from inner cities. Also how the DUH finances, is not fully disclosed. There are also efforts to discourage charitable status for DUH because, for example, diesel bans endanger jobs in the auto industry.