Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2015-10-06-Speech-2-660-000"
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"en.20151006.35.2-660-000"2
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"Madam President, it is clear that Volkswagen has deliberately broken the law and deliberately misled both regulators and consumers. It was wrong to do so, and it should rightly face appropriate and proportionate penalties, but we must understand the regulatory environment in which this scandal has emerged. The truth is that legislators were consumed by climate hysteria and carbon phobia and as a result we pushed car owners and the auto industry towards diesel, which was seen as a lower emissions fuel. In fact its CO2 emissions are only marginally below those of petrol, and, in any case, CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a natural non-toxic gas which is essential to life on earth. But as we are now realising, diesel’s other emissions – SOx and NOx and particulates – are highly toxic, and our dash for diesel has done more harm than good.
Volkswagen was trying to follow the pressure by moving to diesel power but found that it was unable at the same time to meet emissions targets, so it decided to cheat. It was wrong to do so, but so were we as legislators wrong to impose conflicting and contradictory demands on the industry. I see a parallel here with our ill-judged rush to promote biofuels before we understood the issue of energy inputs to agriculture and the impact of indirect land-use change. By mandating 10% biofuels and then rowing back later, we sent confused signals to industry and caused great damage to investors.
It is no part of my job to defend German industry, but nor is this a time for
. I am concerned that the potential hit to Volkswagen could damage all of us, especially if, as many expect, other companies are drawn into the scandal. With the prospect of multimillion dollar fines in several countries, recall costs, class actions from owners and so on, it is not inconceivable that VW could fail. That is an outcome which we should all seek to prevent."@en1
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