The European Commission seems to be only relatively confident in the outcome of the investigations into car emission presented by the member states.
The European institution has asked the various member states that have submitted results to give access to the data and methodology used to draw up their reports, according to Internal Market and Industry Spokeswoman Lucia Caudet on Wednesday 24 August.
These tenements follow revelations in the Financial Times (FT) of 23 August that the investigation set up by the French government, known as the ‘Royal commission’ (after French environment minister Ségolène Royal) hid a number of measures take by French car manufacturer Renault. The British newspaper says the French investigation omitted a number of abnormally high nitrogen oxide results (NOx) from the information about Renault’s Captur car that were among the highest for the panel of cars tested.
The Commission asked member states to establish investigations to examine their car industry’s practices (EUROPE 11396) following the revelations of fraudulent practices by German car manufacturer Volkswagen (EUROPE 11394). To date, only three countries have submitted their reports to the Commission, viz Germany, France and the United Kingdom, explained the spokeswoman. The French authorities handed in their report on Tuesday 2 August.
Jos Dings, managing director of Transport & Environment, an ecologist organisation calling for environmentally-friendly transport, the recent FT revelations are simply a new example of a government protecting "its own national industry champion, but it is not isolated to France. The Italian government protects Fiat, the German government covers for Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler, and the UK looks out for British interests. Here is where Europe can add value and set up a European watchdog that keeps in check the conflict of interests in each national market."
The Commission itself has come in for criticism. Recently, access to various documents of the technical committee for motor vehicles was refused for members of the European Parliament’s EMIS investigative committee, which is examining the Volkswagen scandal (EUROPE 11589). Similarly, former Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen hesitated for a long time before agreeing to bear witness to the investigative committee on Tuesday 30 August (EUROPE 11590). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)