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ANGELA MERKEL

Merkel: trust must be ‘restored’ in diesel cars after emissions scandal

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that trust must be restored in diesel cars after the emissions cheating scandal and spoke out against plans to ban them from some inner cities.

Published: 21 August 2017 16:00 CEST
Merkel: trust must be 'restored' in diesel cars after emissions scandal
File photo of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a Volkswagen car: DPA.

She said she was “angered” by German auto giants who in the “dieselgate” scandal either broke the law or used legal loopholes, but also pointed to the at least 800,000 jobs in the crucial industrial sector.

Speaking just over a month before September 24th elections, Merkel was asked in an online video interview with top-selling Bild newspaper about motorists' fears about the falling resale value of their diesel cars.

She pointed to new software updates designed to fix the emissions problem and said that “in order to prevent or reverse the drop in value of diesel cars, we need to restore trust in diesel”.

To this end, she stressed that she opposed plans by some German cities to fully or partially ban diesel cars from urban areas which have recorded high air pollution levels.

Merkel said “that will be hard work” and the subject of a “summit” with the municipalities involved which she plans to hold on September 4th.

READ ALSO: How Merkel and her main rival are competing to bash car industry in election race

The industry's fall from grace began in 2015 when Volkswagen admitted to installing software in 11 million diesel engines to cheat emissions tests, and suspicions later spread to other manufacturers.

The scandal sparked by a US investigation deepened on reports last month that Daimler, BMW, VW and its Audi and Porsche subsidiaries had long colluded on technical specifications including emissions technology.

The damage done to the 'made in Germany' brand, along with concerns over pollution and plans by some cities to ban dirty diesels, have fuelled public anger.

Merkel said in the Bild interview that her government must balance the concerns of car owners, auto workers and the industrial sector, without explicitly mentioning public health concerns.

Merkel was dubbed the “car chancellor” in 2013 after she went to bat for the sector and argued against an EU cap on emissions.

SEE ALSO: What you should know about the 'dieselgate' scandal shaking up Germany's car industry

But her election opponents, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), also have cosy links to the sector.

In the state of Lower Saxony, which holds a 20-percent stake in Volkswagen and two seats on its board, recent revelations that SPD premier Stephan Weil allowed VW to vet his comments on dieselgate sparked outrage.

POLITICS

Sleep, seaside, potato soup: What will Merkel do next?

 After 16 years in charge of Europe's biggest economy, the first thing Angela Merkel wants to do when she retires from politics is take "a little nap". But what about after that?

Published: 5 December 2021 17:31 CET
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes and smiles at a 2018 press conference in Berlin.
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes at a 2018 press conference in Berlin. Aside from plans to take "a little nap" after retiring this week, she hasn't given much away about what she might do next. Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP

The veteran chancellor has been tight-lipped about what she will do after handing over the reins to her successor Olaf Scholz on December 8th.

During her four terms in office, 67-year-old Merkel was often described as the most powerful woman in the world — but she hinted recently that she will not miss being in charge.

“I will understand very quickly that all this is now someone else’s responsibility. And I think I’m going to like that situation a lot,” she said during a trip to Washington this summer.

Famous for her stamina and her ability to remain fresh after all-night meetings, Merkel once said she can store sleep like a camel stores water.

But when asked about her retirement in Washington, she replied: “Maybe I’ll try to read something, then my eyes will start to close because I’m tired, so I’ll take a little nap, and then we’ll see where I show up.”

READ ALSO: ‘Eternal’ chancellor: Germany’s Merkel to hand over power
READ ALSO: The Merkel-Raute: How a hand gesture became a brand

‘See what happens’
First elected as an MP in 1990, just after German reunification, Merkel recently suggested she had never had time to stop and reflect on what else she might like to do.

“I have never had a normal working day and… I have naturally stopped asking myself what interests me most outside politics,” she told an audience during a joint interview with Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

“As I have reached the age of 67, I don’t have an infinite amount of time left. This means that I want to think carefully about what I want to do in the next phase of my life,” she said.

“Do I want to write, do I want to speak, do I want to go hiking, do I want to stay at home, do I want to see the world? I’ve decided to just do nothing to begin with and see what happens.”

Merkel’s predecessors have not stayed quiet for long. Helmut Schmidt, who left the chancellery in 1982, became co-editor of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a popular commentator on political life.

Helmut Kohl set up his own consultancy firm and Gerhard Schroeder became a lobbyist, taking a controversial position as chairman of the board of the Russian oil giant Rosneft.

German writer David Safier has imagined a more eccentric future for Merkel, penning a crime novel called Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark  that sees her tempted out of retirement to investigate a mysterious murder.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel forms her trademark hand gesture, the so-called “Merkel-Raute” (known in English as the Merkel rhombus, Merkel diamond or Triangle of Power). (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)
 

Planting vegetables
Merkel may wish to spend more time with her husband Joachim Sauer in Hohenwalde, near Templin in the former East Germany where she grew up, and where she has a holiday home that she retreats to when she’s weary.

Among the leisure activities she may undertake there is vegetable, and especially, potato planting, something that she once told Bunte magazine in an interview in 2013 that she enjoyed doing.

She is also known to be a fan of the volcanic island of D’Ischia, especially the remote seaside village of Sant’Angelo.

Merkel was captured on a smartphone video this week browsing the footwear in a Berlin sportswear store, leading to speculation that she may be planning something active.

Or the former scientist could embark on a speaking tour of the countless universities from Seoul to Tel Aviv that have awarded her honorary doctorates.

Merkel is set to receive a monthly pension of around 15,000 euros ($16,900) in her retirement, according to a calculation by the German Taxpayers’ Association.

But she has never been one for lavish spending, living in a fourth-floor apartment in Berlin and often doing her own grocery shopping.

In 2014, she even took Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to her favourite supermarket in Berlin after a bilateral meeting.

So perhaps she will simply spend some quiet nights in sipping her beloved white wine and whipping up the dish she once declared as her favourite, a “really good potato soup”.

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