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Electric VW: production facility for the ID.3 model in Zwickau
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They are being "violated in terms of their property, their health and their right to receive greenhouse gas-related freedom" by Volkswagen: This is what the Greenpeace directors Roland Hipp and Martin Kaiser and the Fridays for Future activist Clara Mayer claim.
For this reason, the Volkswagen Group should be prohibited from selling combustion engines from 2030.
The carmaker must also be obliged to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 65 percent compared to 2018.
That is in the statement of claim of the three, who are filing a civil case before the district court in Braunschweig and are supported by the organization Greenpeace.
The start is this Tuesday at 10.30 a.m. with an oral hearing.
Volkswagen refers to "ambitious" model policy
The Wolfsburg-based group sees no civil law basis for a claim: »In our view, the lawsuit cannot be successful.
It is unfounded and we will request its dismissal in Braunschweig,” announced Janett Fahrenholz, head of regulatory law at Volkswagen AG.
The company points out that it is driving one of the most ambitious e-offensives in the industry and investing more than 52 billion euros by 2026.
A similar process began last year at the Detmold district court.
With the lawsuit there, a farmer wants to enforce that VW will stop selling cars and light commercial vehicles with combustion engines in 2030.
In the course of the proceedings so far, the court first asked the plaintiff to specify his request.
There will be another hearing in February.
VW also rejects the allegations in the Detmold trial and emphasizes its own progress in e-mobility.
Other car manufacturers were also confronted with climate protection demands in various courts.
The German Environmental Aid took action against BMW and Mercedes-Benz, for example.
In the dispute with BMW, the Munich Regional Court wants to announce its verdict in February.
A similar lawsuit by the club against Mercedes was dismissed by the Stuttgart Regional Court in September.
The EU Parliament and the EU Commission want to ban the approval of new combustion engines from 2035.
This does not apply to used cars with classic drives.
In Braunschweig, the plaintiffs are represented by Roda Verheyen, one of the country's best-known environmental lawyers.
In spring 2021, she had won the groundbreaking judgment before the Federal Constitutional Court, which sentenced the legislator to make improvements to the Climate Protection Act.
From this verdict, Verheyen is now deriving claims by individual plaintiffs against large corporations.
mamk/dpa-AFX