Statements&nbsp;by Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY (ALDE, NL), Rapporteur and Jens GIESEKE (EPP, DE), Co-Rapporteur, following the vote on&nbsp;the final report of the Committee of Inquiry on Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector.

statement

emissions of vehicles (T)

GERBRANDY, Gerben-Jan (ALDE, NL)

GIESEKE, Jens (EPP, DE)

Committee of Inquiry into Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector

Final report on the inquiry on emission measurements in the automotive sector: statement by Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY (ALDE, NL), Rapporteur

SOUNDBITE (English), Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY (ALDE, NL), Rapporteur, Both the Commission and many Member States were already for years aware what was going on, so the fact is not that we didn't know, the probolem is that we didn't act based on the knowledge that we had.

SOUNDBITE (English), Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY (ALDE, NL), Rapporteur, The main problem was, or the main reason was, economic interests. Millions of jobs in the car industry. But it is my conviction that if you don't follow the law, you have to be punished for that.

SOUNDBITE (English), Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY (ALDE, NL), Rapporteur, In the end, as we what we see happening in the world now, in California with Tesla, but also other Silicon Valley based high tech companies, they are starting to produce the car of the future. So by being reluctant not to force industry to clean up their business, we are actually more damaging the competitiveness of European car industry than improving it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY (ALDE, NL), The old test was, in a lap, during 20 minutes, under very artificial circumstances. The car industry knew by the second what the car was supposed to do, and that was the reason why they developed defeat devices, software that recognized the fact that the car was tested. So only under those circumstances did the car behave like it was supposed to behave. On the road it suddenly emitted much more dangerous pollutants than during the test cycle. So the new test cycle has been developed now, it should have been introduced much quicker than is done now, but ok.

SOUNDBITE (English), Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY (ALDE, NL), For me it is not really necessary in order to fix this problem to have an agency, the Commission could do it as well, as long as the Commission is internally convinced that it should follow the right path, which means that air quality is the main objective and not the defence of car industry.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jens GIESEKE (EPP, DE), Co-Rapporteur, On the one hand we have the Volkswagen scandal, on the other hand there were other findings we had during committee meetings. We had different application of law, which is of course a pity if you have a rule which is valid for Europe, and in each Member State you have a singular application of the law. So frankly speaking we need a European approach, more effectiveness in control, and if there are disputes between Member States on interpretation of the law, of course at European level you need the power at the Commission's level, to decide on those disputes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jens GIESEKE (EPP, DE), Co-Rapporteur, It is difficult to just do this as a simple blame game, it is the Commission, it is the Member States. In the system, many things went wrong, at Member States level, at Commission's level, but even the house of parliament was responsible, so we have a shared responsibility, and if we look to the future now, we have to take this responsibility seriously, and draw the recommendations to really get the system improved. This will just work if we work together, at Member States level  at Commission's level, and even here in the house of parliament.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jens GIESEKE (EPP, DE), Co-Rapporteur, The message to the public is that we learned the lessons from the past, and we will now do our home work, introduce RDE- testing (Real Driving Emmissions), so this scandal will never happen a second time.