Eurocommissaris Dimas beschuldigt Duitsland van slap klimaatbeleid (en)

EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas has sharply criticised the German EU presidency's lack of interest in curbing climate change, saying Berlin is hampering international efforts to tackle the problem.

"A number of other countries are closer to their Kyoto [climate change] targets, for example Great Britain and Sweden. Then there are others who are hiding behind Germany," Mr Dimas said in an interview with German newspaper Bild am Sonntag on Sunday (4 February).

"Only once Germany puts all the nice speeches into practice will the others no longer be able to hide. If Germany blocks, the rest of Europe doesn't play along. And if Europe doesn't play along, neither does the rest of the world," he added, according to press reports.

"In that case, we might as well all pack our bags," he said.

The German government, which holds the rotating EU presidency, has put environment as one of its priorities of the agenda.

However, Berlin has opposed lowering its emissions quota for 2008-2012 and has announced it will oppose a commission plan to impose a general emission reduction on cars, insisting that the size of vehicles must be taken into consideration.

The commission proposal, set to come out on Wednesday (7 February), aims at reducing CO2 emissions to a fixed amount of grams per kilometre (gpk) by 2012.

The proposal is not popular in Germany, Europe's biggest car-producing country, where many of the best selling luxury cars are among the worst polluters.

"I support further cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from cars," German chancellor Angela Merkel told the Bild am Sonntag weekly on Saturday (3 February), but added: "we need ambitious, but different goals for reductions in the different markets for various automobiles."

The commission plan was delayed by two weeks because it also stirred a bitter dispute within the EU executive itself, between Mr Dimas and the EU industry commissioner Guenter Verheugen who is responsible for policy towards car makers.

European automakers are certain to miss the 2008 voluntary CO2 emissions target of 140gpk for new cars.

Mr Dimas favours a binding average target of 120gpk by 2012.