Internal Market and Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska announced at the press conference following the first day of the Competitiveness Council on Monday 28 November that infringement procedures would be opened against a number of member states in December.
Responding to a question from EUROPE, she said that the time was coming and she thought that the infringement procedures would be launched in the next round of proceedings in December. These infringement procedures have been a long time coming; the commissioner announced them amid great fanfare at her hearing before the European Parliament committee of inquiry (EMIS) into the emissions scandal in September (see EUROPE 11673).
Emissions and motor vehicles was one of the items on the Council agenda with the Slovak Presidency wishing to provide an update on the state of progress in examining the regulation. The commissioner repeated her unhappiness at the slowness of the two joint legislators, the matter having been with the member states for ten months (see EUROPE 11476). She said that it is absolutely necessary to make swift progress if consumer trust is to be won back in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal. In this assessment she was backed by the UK and by France.
At the press conference, Slovak Economy Minister Peter Ziga argued that the reason for the delay was the complexity of the dossier (98 Articles and 19 annexes). Furthermore, he said that it was difficult to agree a position as the European Parliament has not yet adopted its stance. The Parliament’s internal market and consumer protection (IMCO) committee has postponed its vote until January because of the large number of amendments that have been put down. The position of rapporteur Daniel Dalton (ECR, UK) has been fiercely criticised by the various groups. He was pushing for the present approach to be maintained (see EUROPE 11635 and 11664), forcing the political groups to seek to seriously amend his report (see EUROPE 11664). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)