Avoiding at all costs a new scandal over cheating on polluting emissions from cars in the third and fourth RDE (real-world driving emissions) packages that are under preparation is a priority for the European Parliament’s environment committee which will meet in Brussels on Monday afternoon 7 November for discussions with a representative of the European Commission.
It has to be ensured that the new proposals from the Commission on emissions of fine particles, which include a compliance factor and technical exceptions for the tests which would de facto exempt the motor car industry from compliance with public health laws, do not produce an outcome similar to “Dieselgate” in 2015.
Such fears over the proposals discussed by the Commission and member state experts on the technical committee motor vehicles were recently expressed by the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) and by Green MEP Bas Eickhout (see EUROPE 11655).
These fears were formally set out in a letter to the technical committee by relevant MEPs on 25 October. The MEPs stress the importance of a truly representative test procedure which can measure vehicle emissions accurately and ensure pollution standards (EURO VI) are met in the real world. “But the latest compromise on the 3rd RDE package goes in the opposite direction and would undermine the effectiveness of RDE in the future”, state the signatories of the letter, all of whom belong to the environment committee and/or the committee of inquiry into the Volkswagen scandal.
The letter was signed by Seb Dance (S&D, UK), Matthias Groote (S&D, Germany), Miriam Dalli (S&D, Malta), Christine Revault D’Allonnes Bonnefoy (S&D, France), Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (ALDE, Netherlands), Fredrik Federley (ALDE, Sweden) and Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)