BERLIN (AFP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced calls from fellow conservatives Sunday to fight to water down a European Union climate pact until the recession-wracked economy is moving again.
Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer said in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he had written to Merkel calling on her to back away from EU climate protection goals to be approved next month for a time.
"The carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction targets at the EU level must be organised so they do not endanger jobs," said Seehofer, whose state is home to such German automakers as BMW and Audi.
"The automobile industry needs more room to manoeuvre in its implementation" of the targets, he said. "What good are multi-million-euro fines (for violating emissions rules) if at the end of the day the jobs are gone?"
German Economy Minister Michael Glos, also of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, agreed that Germany could ill-afford to make a priority of climate protection with the economy hobbled by the global financial crisis.
"It is not the time to burden the economy with excessive environmental targets," he said.
And the conservative premier of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff, also called for a two-year hiatus for the EU climate package, which is to be passed at a Brussels summit of EU leaders in three weeks.
Merkel is a champion of the EU's climate change plan, having brokered a vow last year by EU leaders to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democrats, junior partners in Merkel's fractious left-right ruling coalition, rejected the conservatives' calls for exceptions out of hand.
"It is astounding how backwards the debate about climate change is in the Union," he told Saturday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, ruling out exceptions for sectors such as automobiles or energy.
He said it was only sensible for industry to cut its spending on energy during an economic downturn.
During a German-Italian summit last week, Merkel warned that the global financial crisis could cause leaders to renege on their environmental pledges made in March 2007 under the German EU presidency.
"The goals of 2020 remain, but let's see how we can meet them" without putting too much pressure on a weak economy, she said.
Official data released this month showed Germany has slipped into recession for the first time in five years, just as the 15-nation eurozone fell its first-ever recession.
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