The German government will increase finance for the fight against air pollution and diesel driving bans by almost 1 billion euros (1.1 billion U.S. dollars), Chancellor Angela Merkel announced during the third diesel summit Monday.

Merkel announced that the budget of the "Clean Air" program, which aims to improve air quality in German cities, will be increased from approximately 1 to 1.5 billion euros and promised an additional 432 million euros with which the German government seeks to support the hardware retrofitting of small diesel trucks.

In order to avoid impending driving bans for older diesel vehicles in cities, representatives of several German municipalities are seeking possibilities to fulfill the European targets for concentrations of air pollutants. German courts have started to impose driving bans in several German cities, most recently in Essen and Mainz.

Back in November, transport minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) said during a speech in the German parliament to "hold municipalities to account" and called upon cities' responsibility to ensure that German citizens could continue to drive their cars.

Prior to the diesel summit, the German association of municipal companies (VKU) opposed the statements made by Scheuer. It would be "simply an insolence", said the president of VKU and mayor of the German city of Mainz Michael Ebling, adding that cities had done "nothing else but consistently ensuring the expansion of public transport for years".