Federal Environment Agency says blue badges are “pragmatic” driving ban solution

Diesel cars in Germany need different kinds of badges to assist authorities in identifying which ones are affected by possible driving bans in inner cities, Maria Krautzberger, head of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), says in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We need the blue badge or we end up with a patchwork of solutions by individual municipalities,” Krautzberger argues.  She says a light-blue badge could be used for diesel cars which have been retrofitted and a dark-blue badge introduced a bit later for newer cars with the most modern standard to help curb pollution in the most severely polluted cities. “The badges are a pragmatic proposition aimed at implementing the [driving ban] ruling,” Krautzberger says, adding that the car industry has to pay for retrofitting manipulated diesel cars. “There’s no question about that.”

Read the interview in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet Diesel driving bans in Germany – The Q & A for background.