Daniel Dalton (ECR). – Mr President, it has been two years since this scandal erupted, but for decades before that drivers suspected that the statistics manufacturers advertised were over-ambitious, shall we say. The Volkswagen scandal confirmed those fears were right. In fact things were far worse than most consumers had suspected, so it is fair for people to ask: what are we doing about it?

Two years on, there are concrete changes we can point to, but a lot more work to be done as well. Firstly, real driving emissions testing legislation became mandatory for new car models at the start of this month. That is a huge step forward in ending the golden lab culture, and a big deterrent to cheat. But two years on, there is still a lot more to do. The emission scandal exposed failures well beyond just testing rules. Most fundamentally, it exposed a failure of culture at some carmakers, and a cosy club between manufacturers and governments’ approval authorities and technical services, but also that there was virtually no ongoing market surveillance. Opening up that club to greater transparency and restoring public trust is at the heart of the new type approval and market surveillance regime that we are now negotiating with the Council.

The Parliament report proposed a system that would do just that: proper market surveillance obligations on Member States, and the Commission mandated to check for failings in national market surveillance; reviews and audits of all parts of the testing and approval process, to shine a light on weaknesses at every stage.

So I would urge the Council to take on board Parliament’s very sensible views in our negotiations. Once we have new rules in place, all the key components in preventing another scandal will be in place, but until we do that, the broken system remains in place. So two years on, let’s finally close the door on the emission scandal once and for all.