Brussels, 09/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - NGOs active in the environment and citizens' health domains believe that the scandal involving Volkswagen diesel engines equipped with fraudulent software and plans for greater flexibility in EU legislation to authorise diesel cars to emit twice as many NOx emissions until 2019, is going too far.
They are exasperated by the Volkswagen scandal and the response to it, which would involve making EU legislation more flexible to the detriment of public health. Around 40 NGOs active in the environment and health domain wrote a letter on Monday 9 November to leaders of the European institutions, demanding that the EU takes action to protect citizens' health against pollution and fraudulent corporate behaviour.
This is the outline of their letter sent to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk and his counterparts at the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker and European Parliament, Martin Schulz. The letter was sent the same day that European ministers responsible for competitiveness were meeting in Brussels to debate a number of subjects including new vehicle emissions tests in real driving conditions (see other article).
The co-signatories of the letter explained that “Volkswagen - and very likely other companies have intentionally misrepresented and manipulated data for years to undercut standards which were put in place to protect our health and the environment. NGOs and other experts have repeatedly warned about major flaws in the way national and EU institutions test, monitor and enforce compliance with emission standards. National and European institutions have also been aware of the problem for years”.
Stop fraud and deregulation.
The NGOs interpret the Volkswagen scandal as “symptomatic of a 'better regulation' agenda (of the European Commission) in favour of cutting compliance costs and replacing the role of the public regulator with corporate co- and self-regulation”, despite the fact that over 400,000 people die prematurely each year in Europe because of polluted air.
They are therefore calling on the leaders of the EU institutions to: - Undertake an immediate, independent and transparent EU-level investigation into the dieselgate scandal, “ including a full review of the rules and regulatory mechanisms that failed to prevent Volkswagen's manipulations, excessive emissions, and misuse of public funds”; Establish EU oversight in the process of type approval for motor vehicles given that the existing procedure whereby national agencies oversee and undertake EU-wide type approval has failed; Strengthen the enforcement of environmental legislation at EU and Member State level, including by equipping public environmental inspectorates with the mandate and powers to protect public health and the environment and improving market surveillance under the recently-unveiled internal market strategy by the Commission; Ensure that fraudulent companies are suspended from the EU lobby register until it has been demonstrated that they comply with EU law, and consequently decline meetings between the companies and the EU institutions unless the meeting directly concerns an investigation. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)