Merkel Blasts German Carmakers

German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened her reelection campaign on Saturday by chastising much of the country’s auto industry for having “gambled away unbelievable amounts of trust.”

She specifically called on the industry’s top leadership to reestablish credibility by making themselves models of honesty, Reuters reports.

Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, which is campaigning for economic stability, is critiquing Germany’s auto industry in part to prod it into becoming more innovative. But Reuter says Merkel’s attack on the sector’s leadership aims to blunt calls for more radical action by her chief opponent, leftist Martin Schulz of the Social Democratic Party.

Merkel repeated her admonition not to “demonize” diesels. She called on the auto industry to maintain a mix of gasoline and diesel models but declared the German auto industry must “make the transition faster to new technologies.” At the same time, she again rejected a proposal by her opponent to impose sales targets for electric vehicles.