Another summit on Friday to solve diesel vehicles issue in Germany

There will be another high-level diesel summit in the German chancellery on Friday, two government sources said on Tuesday, as the transport minister said his top priority was to ensure that diesel owners can swap their old vehicles for cleaner ones.

The government sources said both the environment and economy ministries were due to take part in the meeting.

Differences of opinions between the conservative-run economy ministry and the environment ministry, run by the Social Democrats, over how to tackle the problem of diesel cars with high nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions have strained Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition.

Carmakers and German government representatives failed to reach a compromise on Sunday over potential hardware retrofits for older diesel vehicles.