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The VW Emission Fraud was an EU Responsibility

The European Union has sovereignty over much of the transport legislation in the EU countries(including the UK).  The EU legislation on emissions is summarised in: REGULATION (EC) No 443/2009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL.

Volkswagen, and possibly many other car makers, have installed special "defeat devices" to fool the emission test regime.  This is illegal in the EU and should lead to massive fines - not least for fraud - but don't hold your breath if you are expecting EU action.

What should cause concern is that Volkswagen knew it was in trouble about emissions as early as April this year in the USA.  Furthermore it seems that the German Government was aware of the use of "defeat devices" in July and probably knew that VW was using these devices. VW's software supplier, Bosch, warned about illegal use of the software in 2007.  Porsche began its bid for VW in 2007 (See Note 1).

"It has emerged that EU Officials were first warned in 2013 that the technology could be used to cheat the emissions tests. But regulators ignored the report from the European Commission's own research body." ("Volkswagen was warned 8 years ago" ).  According to The Times the EU was aware of defeat devices five years ago.

When questioned about whether the EU knew about "defeat devices" at the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety - meeting 23/09/2015 the EU Commission Representative Joanna Szychowska, Head of Unit for Automotive and Mobility Industries in DG GROWTH, refused to make a straight reply.  Many MEPs have spotted that the USA is taking action but the use of these devices was common knowledge within the EU and the EU took no action.  The EU has not had its accounts pass audit for 19 years so it could not be EU corruption that is responsible....

The British media are, as usual, failing to see the emissions test scandal as the problem of the body that had responsibility: the EU. Why?

The defeat devices really did defeat the regulations, the VW Passat was massively more polluting than the Standards (often 10 times more).  The green line in the graph below is the regulatory standard and the bars represent the VW Passat's actual performance:


 (Graph from The Study that Brought Down Volkswagen)

Incidentally, the departure of manufacturers data from real world data on emissions is well known in the Industry.  Hybrids also have fraudulent figures and all manufacturers seem to be involved.  There is an excellent report produced by The International Council on Clean Transportation: FROM LABORATORY TO ROAD.

(Graph from: The Economist: A Mucky Business)

When considering the EU we should not just select the areas of EU sovereignty that we like and praise the EU, we should also consider the other areas where the EU is sovereign.


Note 1: On October 23, 2007, the European Court of Justice formally struck down the "Volkswagen Law", ruling that its protectionism illegally restricted the free movement of capital in European markets.  The Volkswagen Law was passed in 1960, it transferred the State owned VW into a joint stock company that was 20% owned by the Federal Governments and 20% owned by the State of Lower Saxony with a limit of 20% on any other stock holding.  The contentious part of the Law was that was that any decisions taken at the annual shareholder's meeting needed an 80% majority to be passed.  Porche, the car company, had set the EU on VW's case because it wanted to mount a takeover. In 2009 Porche owned more than 50% of VW shares.  Lower Saxony is still a major shareholder.  See  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-passes-controversial-volkswagen-law

25/9/15

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