Euro 5 diesel vehicles: from 1 October, the driving ban will come into force only in Lombardy
Following Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna, Veneto has also officially lifted the ban. Veneto’s President Stefani said: ‘A promise kept. We won’t leave anyone stranded.’
Only Lombardy will enforce restrictions on car use Euro 5 diesel vehicles which were due to come into force in the regions of the Po Valley from 1 October. Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto have opted to adopt compensatory measures to reduce emissions.
The case of Veneto
“A promise kept. We won’t leave anyone stranded.” Alberto Stefani, President of the Veneto Region, commented with these words on the go-ahead voted through on 15 September by the Regional Council to suspend the ban on Euro 5 diesel cars. The measure, which was originally due to come into force a year ago, on 1 October 2025, applies to vehicles registered from September 2011 until the introduction of the Euro 6 standard in 2015 and was designed to reduce emission levels in one of the most polluted areas in Italia and across Europe.
The leader of the Lega, Matteo Salvini, is strongly opposed to the measure, having set himself the aim of preventing a lockdown across the entire Po Valley. “As Transport Minister, I asked for an extension because I don’t think it’s sensible to penalise those who cannot afford to buy a new car or van,” said Salvini, warning that 500,000 Lombardy residents “risk being left stranded”.
Stefani shares this view, explaining that ‘protecting the environment is a priority, but the green transition cannot be paid for by the public. We cannot impose a new cost on those who, for example, use their car every day to get to work, take their children to school, look after a family member or run their own business. Sustainability must also be economic and social’.
The governor stated that ‘there are hundreds of thousands of people who drive a Euro 5 vehicle, and we cannot simply tell them to change their car’. However, he went on to say, the regional administration will not abandon its goal of improving air quality, but will choose a different route to achieve it, by adopting ‘concrete and effective’ measures, starting with remote working in the public sector: ‘The Veneto region,’ he emphasised, ‘wants to protect the environment without penalising those who work and without causing hardship to those who cannot afford to buy a new car’.
