Legislative measures adopted in the EU after the Dieselgate scandal in 2015 have had an impact, but they are not a panacea and have had a limited impact on improving urban air quality, according to a briefing paper published by the EU Court of Auditors on Thursday 7 February.
The Court of Auditors has produced a paper analysing all of the available information, and not an audit, because not all legislation is yet fully in force. No implementing acts have yet been adopted to help with implementation.
While welcoming the improvements in market surveillance, the auditors point out that its effectiveness will depend on implementation by the Member States. They warn that manufacturers may find ways around the new testing systems and that many independent third-party organisations may not be able to carry out WLTP and RDE tests because of the high costs involved (at least €80,000 more for each test).
Limited impact of NOx standards. Another weakness that the auditors found concerned the impact of the emission limits established for nitrogen oxides in the new real world driving tests (RDE): the impact would have been greater if the temporary limit of 128 mg/km that was proposed initially had been adopted instead of the 168 mg/km limit that the Commission imposed by amending the Euro 6 standard for RDE tests (the EU Court ruled that the Commission had no jurisdiction in this area - see EUROPE 12159).
Samo Jereb, the member of the Court of Auditors responsible for the paper, told the press that “even though more than ten million vehicles have been recalled so far, the limited data available indicates that the impact on NOx emissions has been small”.
The auditors point to the risk that manufacturers may adapt their vehicles for RDE tests and that NOx emissions will remain high. There is also a risk that they may artificially inflate the CO2 emissions baseline values in the type-approval procedure.
"The new regulations on reducing emissions from new passenger cars and vans will ensure there are reductions by 2030 compared to 2021. The old test procedure will apply until 2020, and the WLTP procedure will apply from 2021. A manufacturer whose vehicles emit less than 95 g/km will be tempted not to go any further", explained an auditor.
The auditors also believe that the penalties that the Commission will be able to impose must be high enough to act as a deterrent.
Lack of transparency. The paper highlights the lack of transparency with type-approval data, as it may include the emission levels of vehicles that have been made re-compliant (after the rigged software has been removed), in contrast to the total transparency practised in the United States under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Greens outraged again. The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, which in 2016 objected to the delegated act that the Commission used to introduce correction coefficients that allowed manufacturers to exceed the limits set by the EURO VI standard, criticised the weakness of the European response to Dieselgate. "It is scandalous that people in cities are still suffering from miserable air quality three and a half years after Dieselgate", said Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout and French MEP Karima Delli. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)