Brussels, 11/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - The initiative came from a local authority. On Wednesday 11 May, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announced that she had appealed to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) to oppose the very controversial decision adopted in committee procedures on 28 October to reduce the levels demanded in European legislation (EURO VI standards) for NOx emissions from diesel engines (see EUROPE 11482 and 11454).
This decision was taken in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal and the introduction of emission tests in real conditions, which provoked much criticism.
Hidalgo calls on all mayors from major cities to join her in her appeal to get this decision withdrawn. The Prioritize Health of Citizens Over Industrial Lobbies petition that she launched in March was hugely successful. The mayors of Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Valetta, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, Nicosia, Oslo, Riga, Rotterdam, Sofia, Stockholm, Warsaw and Vienna were among the first signatories. The petition calls for “governments from across Europe to use all the legal and political means in their power to ensure Europe's air pollution standards are applied consistently across every industry”. According to Hidalgo, the climate commitments to which 1,000 mayors subscribed at the COP 21 conference require this.
“The legal procedure begun by the mayors against the Commission should not ignore the fact that member states have been complicit in this decision. The majority of them, particularly France, have even put pressure on the Commission to make the standards more flexible”, said Karima Delli MEP (Greens/EFA, France). “In this respect, the support displayed by Ségolène Royal for the initiative of the mayors is completely preposterous”, Delli added. In February, MEPs from the Greens/EFA Group wrote to Royale asking her to go to the CJEU to oppose what they believe is an illegal decision (see EUROPE 11490). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)