Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

Opinion

Firmer rules needed to root out Dieselgate Inc.

  • The Commission’s influential High Level Group on the competitiveness and sustainable growth of the automotive industry (CARS 21). This group was 'monopolised' by industry forces, writes Olivier Hoedeman (Photo: European Commission)

Volkswagen’s use of illegal defeat devices in emissions testing will take centre stage at the European Parliament once more, when the Committee on Emissions Measurements in the Automotive Sector (EMIS) comes together for a final vote next Tuesday (28 February).

This could be a turning point for stricter monitoring and regulation of the car industry in Europe if the vote on the committee’s ‘Dieselgate report makes a strong case for overhauling the way car emissions are controlled.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

  • 'Tuesday’s vote on the final EMIS committee report is a good starting point to unravel the mistakes that were made in the past' (Photo: Peter Teffer)

The positive impact on public health would certainly be considerable. Around 75,000 people died prematurely due to toxic pollutants in diesel fumes in 2015 alone.

Parliament’s inquiry into Dieselgate has revealed that problems with emission tests went far beyond Volkswagen’s use of illegal defeat devices. The report puts the European Commission and member states on the spot: the committee’s investigation has exposed a culture of looking the other way.

Both the European Commission and member states turned a blind-eye to industry-wide abuse of the system for emission regulation. As part of its "better regulation" agenda, the commission even invited the car industry to shape regulation as well as its enforcement.

Unsurprisingly then, the car industry managed to delay the implementation of existing emission standards and monopolised the commission’s influential high level group on the competitiveness and sustainable growth of the automotive industry (CARS 21) since it was formed in 2006. The resulting bias clearly shows in the group’s recommendations.

CARS 21 pushed market-driven solutions, promoted industry-friendly impact assessments that would pit any policy’s overall benefits against its costs to business, and argued for voluntary agreements instead of binding regulation.

Concrete new policies proposed by CARS 21 included the replacement of EU-specific emission testing methods with weaker global standards, self-testing instead of fully independent assessments and lead-in times for any new rules that would delay their coming into force.

While that is certainly in keeping with the simplifying and non-interventionist rhetoric and aims of better regulation, it fails to prioritise central sustainability criteria, which alongside competition aspects were meant to be a focus for the group.

With evidence of negative health impacts of diesel pollution mostly sidelined, it is perhaps unsurprising that public health considerations have not informed much commission action on emission regulation. Cities across the EU keep choking on toxic traffic fumes.

But the Volkswagen scandal has lifted the lid on a culture of industry self-regulation and light-touch rule-making that is facilitated by European decision makers and that reveals the flaws in the EU’s Better Regulation agenda.

It shows how the paradigm of simplified regulation meant to improve competitiveness has, in fact, allowed the car industry to set the agenda – where manufacturers cried wolf whenever suggested measures might have affected their profits.

Better regulation has essentially given industry a lever to delay and weaken the EU’s commitment to more accurately test emissions from vehicles on the road.

Tuesday’s vote on the final EMIS committee report is a good starting point to unravel the mistakes that were made in the past and push the commission and member states to protect people from the abuse of the car lobby.

But in order to keep industry influence at bay and rebalance future policy-making in favour of public interest, the commission must also urgently rethink its better regulation agenda. This programme allowed the car industry to gain excessive influence over decision-making in the first place.

Dieselgate is merely a case study of the way in which better regulation can give industry representatives the upper hand. It is a dynamic which has also already taken hold across many other areas of EU legislation.

Any agenda that aims to improve regulatory processes needs to ensure that policies and legislation actually achieve their environmental, health, social or related public interest objectives. The reduction of costs for business must be secondary to that.

Olivier Hoedeman is Research and Campaign Coordinator at Corporate Europe Observatory. He testified in front of the EMIS committee in June 2016

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

How the car industry won the EU's trust

Car companies are allowed to do carry out some testing of their own products thanks to some little-noticed legislation inspired by an industry-backed report.

Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers

The UN could launch an independent international investigation into Navalny's killing, akin to investigation I conducted on Jamal Khashoggi's assassination, or on Navalny's Novichok poisoning, in my role as special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, writes the secretary-general of Amnesty International.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us