
Investigation
EU lawmakers need more time for car approval reform
Christofer Fjellner, one of the involved MEPs, said the original timing was "pretty tight" and defended the delay.
Monday
21st Nov 2016

Christofer Fjellner, one of the involved MEPs, said the original timing was "pretty tight" and defended the delay.

A garbage crisis in Naples, Italy, gave birth to the "zero waste" movement, but is the rest of Europe brave enough to change the way it thinks about trash?
A government report could have been more detailed, but it was already more damning in tone than its German and UK counterparts.
Waste collection and recycling is going to be ramped up, and that will translate into circular business opportunities.
Quotas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in sectors such as agriculture or transport will have added flexibility.

Emissions experts in Berlin said they agreed with an EU commission proposal to allow 1.5 times exceedance of the limit for dangerous particle numbers.

Draft legislation, seen by EUobserver, envisaged wide margin of error to help manufacturers when emissions testing moves out of the lab and onto the road.

Alexander Dobrindt tells MEPs he is not responsible for Volkswagen's emissions cheating, blaming the carmaker and EU legislation for leaving too much room for interpretation.

The Joint Research Centre said in 2012 that a diesel vehicle was emitting much more nitrogen oxide (NOx) when the outside temperature was different from the laboratory parameters.
A secret document said the EU may allow carmakers to use software that switches off the pollution control system when its 10C or colder.
Chairwoman of the inquiry committee, Kathleen Van Brempt, says that the car approval system needs to be reformed.
Cars that run on petrol or diesel are meant to be a rarity by the year 2050. Progress is slow. But some Nordic cities have radical visions of how a "Hyperloop" could change that.
Long-term policies will strengthen our competitiveness and create more jobs, while combating climate change in the long run.
Environment ministers will try to agree this week to speed up the process to sign up to the Paris agreement. Otherwise it would not be present at the table of the signatories at a conference in November.
One year ago, it emerged that VW had cheated on emission tests in what came to be called the Dieselgate affair. EUobserver looked at how it happened and what the EU did to stop it.
“You will definitely see some infringement procedures next month,” said commissioner Bienkowska in Strasbourg on Monday.
An Italian report triggered by the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal finds Fiat cars emitting more than double the EU limit. The report was finished in July, but has not been made public.
A year after Dieselgate broke, millions of polluting cars are still on the road. Not everyone will adhere to the Volkswagen recall, and some who did want the cheating software back.

A leaked EU memo from 2012 shows that officials warned the office of former industry chief Antonio Tajani on possible illegal car emissions discrepancies, but he did nothing to investigate.

Carmakers claim they don't know what "normal" driving conditions are in terms of EU law. But their own lobby group already decided 14 years ago.
French committee concluded that car manufacturers “systematically” used defeat devices. Market surveillance in the EU was “largely insufficient”.
The 2012 request is somewhat ironic, considering that it has since emerged some car companies themselves have misled the public about how their cars' emissions filters worked.

MEPs' visit to emissions lab in Ispra did not yield a lot of new evidence, inquiry committee chairwoman said, as VW announced billions of euro in profit.

New York attorney general says his investigation showed "a culture of deeply rooted corporate arrogance" in the Volkswagen Group.
Members of the UK parliament said in report that Volkswagen Group acted with “a cynical disregard for emissions limits”.
First former EU commissioner Stavros Dimas appears in front of parliamentary inquiry committee into Dieselgate scandal.

German MEP Bernd Lange wrote the definition of defeat devices in 1997 into EU legislation, but also the exception carmakers use as a loophole.

The EU Commission has offered to clarify legislation on emissions cheating software, but an apparent communication breakdown with Germany is not helping its cause.
The Italian carmaker is accused of using an emissions-cheating software, but a recent Italian letter to Brussels shows that the potential fine is minuscule.
EU Commission always maintained it had no indication VW cheated, but one EU researcher reportedly suspected the use of a cheating strategy in 2010.