Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands), in an exchange with journalists on Tuesday 24 January, said that the European Commission submitted an important document one day before the deadline for tabling amendments to the final report of the committee of inquiry into the Volkswagen scandal (EMIS committee). The timing is all the more incomprehensible as the memo dated back to the end of 2015.
Eickhout told journalists that the Commission submitted a particularly important internal memo on 17 January 2017, one day before the cut-off date for the tabling of amendments to the committee’s final report, even though the memo was from November 2015. This information has been confirmed to us by another source.
The memo is on the inter-private office conclusions following the Volkswagen scandal – which had burst into the open a few weeks earlier – for Tomasz Husak, Head of the private office of Internal Market and Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska.
The document, of which EUROPE has had sight, contains conclusions on the fall-out from the scandal and decisions to be taken in light of EU law, in particular the Euro 5 and Euro 6 regulation (Regulation 715/2007) and the directive establishing a framework for the approval of motor vehicles (Directive 2007/46/EC).
The memo stated the necessity for member states to ensure compliance with European legislation and to call on manufacturers to recall the vehicles that had invalid devices. It also noted that member states could stop the sale of non-compliant vehicles no longer in production but for which models were still on sale and set out the procedure to be followed when a vehicle was considered to be illegal.
It also makes a brief but instructive comparison between the general rules on the United States and European legislation on vehicle type approval and more specifically on possible action in the event of malpractice.
This is information that could have been of great usefulness to MEPs who began working on this issue only a few months after the memo was drafted.
The committee’s final report flags up cooperation problems with the European Commission in being given access to certain documents (see EUROPE 11692), including from the technical committee - motor vehicles (see EUROPE 11623). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)