Socialists and Democrats want to close the never-ending story of Dieselgate – successfully and with greater vigilance. At the plenary debate held today in the European Parliament they urged the Commission and the EU member states to implement the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry committee into emission measurements in the automotive sector (EMIS).

S&D vice-president for sustainability, Kathleen Van Brempt MEP, said:

“The European Commission needs to deliver on the recommendations of the EMIS inquiry committee on Dieselgate. This means cleaning up the past and preparing for the future. The answers from the Commission and the member states so far lack seriousness and firmness.

“All Volkswagen cars equipped with defeat devices should have been fixed by autumn 2017. However, more than 3 million of them have not yet been recalled and such a recall is only mandatory in four member states. We urge the Commission and national authorities to better co-ordinate the VW recall and to ensure that consumers are properly compensated if the recall causes adverse impacts on the car’s fuel consumption and durability.”

MEP Christine Revault d'Allonnes Bonnefoy, S&D author of the final EMIS report, said:

“The Commission has started several infringement procedures, but the process is too slow and lacks legal certainty for the consumers. They have no guarantee that their cars will be properly fixed and many face a situation in which they have to pay their own repair bills. Call-back programmes are now voluntary, creating a patchwork of different national measures. Europe should make them mandatory and streamline them so that all Europeans are treated equally.

“Deadlines must be met. This cannot go on forever. Millions of cars have been affected and are still waiting to be fixed, and in the meantime excessive emissions just keep going, polluting the air, making people sick. It's more than time to take concrete actions.”

Seb Dance MEP, S&D spokesperson for the special inquiry committee (EMIS), said:

“If Europe does not accelerate the electrification of its car fleet, our industries will soon lose market share once electric cars become cheaper than their combustion-engine counterparts. Without a proper strategy, we'll see more battery mega-factories and high-skilled jobs in the US and Asia, but not in Europe.

“As recommended by the EMIS committee, we need Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) quotas in the upcoming proposal on CO2 standards for cars and vans with the aim of phasing out new CO2-emitting cars by 2035.”