According to SPIEGEL information, the Federal Government has received a severe legal damper with its strategy against diesel driving bans, which should have an impact on many cities in Germany. The Administrative Court of Baden-Wuerttemberg has declared the amendment to the Federal Immission Control Act (BImschG) unlawful. With the amendment passed in the Bundestag, the government wanted to prevent driving bans in cities where the exposure to nitrogen dioxide is just above the limit.

The Bundestag had decided on a "tolerance limit" of 50 instead of the statutory 40 micrograms of nitrogen oxides per cubic meter of air. As a result, cities that miss the current nitrogen oxide limit of 40 micrograms per cubic meter of air by up to 10 micrograms did not have to impose driving bans to reduce the concentration of toxic gas in the city. Because these are, the government argues in their amendment, "disproportionate".

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But this regulation, which was approved by the Bundestag but has not yet come into force, has now been interpreted by the 10th Senate of the Administrative Court as a "clear violation" of European law. So it stands in the opinion, which was sent today and the SPIEGEL present.

Reutlingen must impose driving bans

The judgment concerned the city of Reutlingen, which does not provide for driving restrictions in its clean air plan. Their argument: Currently, the nitric oxide concentration is 53 micrograms, but it will fall in the coming years to well below 50 micrograms. But the judges in Stuttgart make a dash through the bill. The judges do not consider it responsible, "tolerate massive exceedances of the limit by up to 25 percent," it says. Specifically, this means that the state of Baden-Württemberg must include driving restrictions in the clean air plan.

Thus, the regulation of the Federal Government is already pending, before it could have been effective. This complaint has been brought to the attention of the German Environmental Aid, which has filed a lawsuit against Reutlingen's Clean Air Plan.

Disgrace for the federal government

The next dispute is likely to take place in Stuttgart: There, the state government, with reference to the tolerance limit of 50 micrograms from the BImschG amendment, zonal driving bans for the city of Stuttgart for diesel cars the pollutant Euro 5 rejected. Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) and his CDU coalition partners had just celebrated for this plan. However, the DUH has filed for SPIEGEL information against this regulation of the Ministry of Transport already enforcement action.

Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU), who considers the danger of driving bans for a large number of cities to be banned by the alleged ruse of the BImschG, would also be disgraced. Against the verdict a revision is possible. This would, if the city of Reutlingen makes an effort, take place before the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig.