Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. is fighting for sustainable mobility in German cities. In their latest newsletter, you can find more information about this turnaround of mobility. The corresponding court rulings have already been pronounced and are legally binding. The federal and state governments are now partly refusing to implement the binding measures. The affected state governments are in Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg.
The Federal Minister of Transport during that time, Andreas Scheuer, had publicly announced that he would ignore the rulings. Even now under Volker Wissing, the Ministry of Transport is still tolerating illegal exceeding of the limit value for harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx), as alarming measures have shown. Therefore, Deutsche Umwelthilfe is forced to take further legal steps and to sue in second and third instance.
The ruling against the Bavarian state government and Markus Söder was made 5 years ago. Nevertheless, no change is taking place in order to protect people in Munich from air pollution, which is too high. Giant automobile groups like BMW and Audi put lots of pressure on the local politicians and thereby avoid actual implementations in traffic law that would lead to more eco-friendliness but to disadvantages for the car companies.
In the meantime, Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. has taken the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The latter is now to clarify whether the responsible public officials can be forced to comply with the law by means of compulsory detention. A serious violation of EU law by the Bavarian state government has already been established by the authorities in Luxembourg. Currently, Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. is in the process of filing a lawsuit against the Federal Republic of Germany in the last instance. The financial outlay for the legal steps is enormous. That is why the Daniel Schlegel Umweltstiftung is contributing 10,000 euros to achieve the mobility turnaround.
