German automaker Volkswagen has defended itself against collusion allegations, saying it is normal for car manufacturers to exchange some technical information.
Both VW and Daimler held emergency supervisory board meetings to discuss reports of a decades-long German automaker cartel.
Ira Spitzer reports from Berlin.
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VO#1 Allegations of a German auto cartel are threatening to slow down the country's mighty car industry. According to media reports, the country's top five carmakers may have illegally colluded over technology and other practices since the nineteen nineties. Their decisions may have paved the way for Volkswagen's massive diesel emissions scandal which was exposed two years ago. Here's Tobias Austrup of Greenpeace, Germany.
SOT, Tobias Austrup, Greenpeace Germany
"This would mean that it's a cartel that not only sought to circumvent the market economy, but also one that deliberately accepted the health damages that were inflicted."
VO#2 Germany is the world's biggest car exporter and employs almost eight hundred thousand people in the auto sector, which is now threatened by the EU investigation. German chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesperson Ulrike Demmer recently commented on the issue.
SOT, Ulrike Demmer, German government spokesperson
"It is now up to the cartel authorities to pursue indications in this direction, to clarify the facts and, in the end, to make the necessary decisions. Of course, the auto industry is important for Germany.
VO#3 The automakers could face fines of up to ten percent of their annual revenue, which would amount to tens of billions of dollars. However, some experts, like Greenpeace's Topias Austrup, are wary of the power the industry has even at a European level.
SOT, Tobias Austrup, Greenpeace Germany
"The fact that this feeling of being able to act with impunity has developed, is an indication that the auto industry is too closely intertwined with politics and the federal government."
VO#4 BMW has denied the collusion allegations. Porsche and Audi, both owned by Volkswagen, are also implicated in the cartel, along with Daimler. Another issue for Germany's car industry may be whether combustion engines have a future at all. France and now the United Kingdom are set to ban diesel and petrol engines by twenty forty. Ira Spitzer, Berlin.
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