Det er vist ingen ende på dårlige sager fra EU. Nu viser det sig at EU-kommissionen siden 2007 har været vidende om, at VW's dieselbiler havde udledninger, der lå langt over det tilladte.
"The EU bureaucracy was one of the first to be informed, through its research organizations, about the high nitric oxide emissions of the VW vehicle fleet. In 2007, experts with European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) tested the emissions from operating diesel cars. Additional tests using the so-called PEMS method were performed in 2011 and 2013. The results were the same each time: Nitric oxide (NOX) emissions were several times higher than the levels measured in type approval tests in the laboratory."
Det var også tilfældet for andre bilmærker:
"Be it the Fiat Scudo, Bravo or Punto, the VW Golf or Passat, the Renault Clio or the BMW 120d, not a single model even remotely complied with nitric oxide limits in normal operation."
Udledningerne menes at have resulteret i mange dødsfald:
"By that point, the authorities should have been addressing the problem with great urgency: The air quality in many large EU cities was miserable. In 2008, for example, 296 of 821 zones in a total of 21 EU countries reported fine particulate matter levels in the air in excess of allowable thresholds. The NO2 limits were exceeded in 188 zones. Nitric oxides, especially NO2, are considered highly hazardous to health, with the potential to cause breathing problems, inflammation of the lung tissue and asthma. According to an April 2016 statistic by the European Environmental Agency, about 72,000 people in the EU die prematurely as a result of high nitric oxide levels every year."
Kommissionen, der altså var velvidende om snyderierne advarede samtidig medlemslandene om for høje forureningsniveauer:
"Two years later, in October 2012, the Commission threatened at least 22 member states with infringement proceedings for violations of air quality directives, "mainly due to the exceedance of NO2 concentration levels in ambient air," reads an internal Commission briefing."
Lige for at summere op. EU-kommissionen og den tyske regering vidste udmærket godt at dieselbiler forurenede for meget, men af hensyn til bilindustrien undlod de at gøre noget, men truede alligevel medlemslandene med sanktioner, hvis ikke luftkvaliteten blev bedre, idet de selv vurderede at omkring 72.000 mennesker dør hvert år pga. luftforureningen.
Endnu engang ser man konsekvenserne af, at EU-politikerne svigter deres opgave, og snyder og manipulerer så multinationale virksomheder kan få det, som de vil have det.
Kontrollen lægges på EU-niveau, der så svigter deres opgave. Nationalstaterne kunne sagtens have afsløret dette for længst, men de må ikke lave egne kontroller. Ligner det ikke på sin vis, hvad der kaldes "flygtninge-krisen" ?
