Strasbourg, 06/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - At the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on Tuesday 6 October, the MEPs devoted a great deal of time to questioning the Commissioner for the Single Market and Industry, Elzbieta Bienkowska, to find out whether the Commission was aware of the fraudulent practices used by the car builder Volkswagen before the scandal broke.
The question was on the lips of most of the political groups. The MEP Michael Cramer (Greens/EFA, Germany), president of the committee on transport and tourism, questioned the manifest lack of action on the part of the Commission even though it has held information since 2008. Similarly, Pavel Telicka (ALDE, Czech Republic) wondered how long the Commission had been aware of these practices, and Merja Kyllönen (GUE/NGL, Finland) referred to the existence of a report from 2007 published by the Commission's services, flagging up the existence of an inexplicable difference between the results obtained in laboratory conditions and those under real conditions. Miguel Urban Crespo (GUE/NGL, Spain) referred to another document, dating from 2011, which the Commission is also reported to have been in possession of, which allegedly makes explicit reference to dubious Volkswagen practices.
Dominique Riquet (ALDE, France) regretted the fact that it took 10 years between the first worrying data and the implementation of a new emissions testing framework, scheduled to be in place by September 2017. Jorn Dohrmann (ECR, Denmark) urged the Commission to learn lessons from its inaction. The EPP group was the least virulent, refraining from accusing the Commission in this scandal.
Many MEPs furthermore stressed that it was an American agency, the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States (EPA), that was behind the discovery of the German group's fraud, rather than the European agency. This, they argue, proves the superiority of the American system over the one in force in the EU, overturning concerns that environmental standards would be diluted in the framework of negotiations on the transatlantic partnership (TTIP).
The Commissioner responded by stating that the Commission had reacted to the shortcomings of the current control system and that it was for this reason that it has been working for several years on a legislative project to revise directive 2007/46/EC on type-approval systems for motor vehicles. The Joint Research Centre only stated in these reports that the defeat devices could be behind the differences between real conditions, she said. She went on to stress that if action had been slow in coming, this was because it was a highly technical dossier. She also explained that following the investigation currently underway, the Commission would make changes to the draft.
Bienkowska also presented a three-stage plan, which she had already presented to the Competitiveness Council of 1 October (see EUROPE 114010). First of all, she said, we need to investigate and establish the facts and apply the existing rules, then we must speed up the adoption of the regulatory framework on the emissions of polluting gases, and finally we need to change the monitoring and type-approval systems to ensure that a situation of this kind “never happens again”.
The Commission has made a proposal to the member states to create a platform for the exchange of information and coordination of actions which remain under the aegis of the member states, she continued, going on to stress that the European institution had no competence to carry out its own investigations at European level in the automotive sector. This argument did not fully win over Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA), as he told EUROPE. This lack of competence is not entirely clear, he said.
A meeting with the type-approval authorities will be held on 15 October, as agreed at the recent Competitiveness Council, she added. On 1 October, the Commissioner announced that she was to present the initial results of the investigations carried out at national level to the forthcoming Competitiveness Council of 30 November. “We must be clear (…) on the timescales and the actions to be taken in order to remedy the situation”, said the Commissioner, going on to add: “We must do this as quickly as possible to restore consumer confidence”.
Certain MEPs expressed their dissatisfaction at the lack of concrete proposals from the Commissioner, among them Pavel Telicka and Yannick Jadot (Greens/EFA). “If you want to win European trust, stop working on the European lie”, said the latter.
The members of the Greens group have been highly active in this dossier and last week launched a petition calling for a European investigation into vehicle pollution test fraud, in order to avoid any bias the national authorities may be suspected of.
At its plenary session in Strasbourg at the end of October, the Parliament is to adopt a resolution on this scandal. Bienkowska undertook, at the end of the debate, to provide a written response so that this can be included in the resolution. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)