Greens accuse France of double standards on diesel emissions

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French Green MEPs have called on Ségolène Royal to challenge the EU’s new diesel emissions limits, but the ecology minister supported the lower standards when they were adopted in October. EurActiv France reports. The debate that began last autumn between the European Commission, the Parliament and the member states ended on 2 February with the EU accepting lower emissions standards for diesel vehicles. MEPs refused to veto the decision made by member states in October last year to raise emissions limits for certain pollutants. France immediately denounced the result in a statement issued by the Ministry of Ecology, despite the fact that this same ministry had supported the proposal three months earlier. Under new rules adopted on 28 October after an agreement between the Commission and the EU member states, carmakers will have to submit their vehicles to stricter emissions tests, carried out under real-world driving conditions, from September 2017. Tests are currently conducted in laboratories. To soften the blow of the tougher new testing requirements, carmakers will be allowed to exceed the legal limit for nitrogen oxide emissions by as much as 110%. Lawmakers justified this flexibility by arguing that it was impossible for vehicle manufacturers to improve the real emissions of their diesel fleets in such a short time-span. After the European Parliament’s refusal to veto the agreement, several French Green MEPs demanded that their minister for ecology attack the new rules in the European courts. But France – along with the United Kingdom and Germany – had been an active supporter of the relaxed standards that appear in the October deal. “While France […] was among the large majority of EU countries that voted for the agreement on pollutant emissions testing under real-world conditions, minister Ségolène Royal immediately made a U-turn, implying the European Commission was to blame,” said Dominique Riquet, a French Liberal MEP. “Ségolène Royal was perfectly aware of this decision, nothing was hidden,” said Yannick Jadot, a French Green MEP. In a last ditch effort to bloc what they see as a gift to carmakers, the French Green delegation in the European Parliament has made an official request to Ségolène Royal to challenge the decision in the European courts. “This emissions objective is illegal under the provisions of the European directive,” Green MEP Karima Delli said. “And if Ségolène Royal thought the decision was illegal back in October, that should still be the case,” Jadot added. The affair has also raised a few eyebrows in Paris. “What I find slightly worrying is that the probable future minister of foreign affairs should show such disregard for European issues by blaming Brussels for her own decisions,” a French diplomatic source told EurActiv.

Euractiv, 8 February 2016 ;http://www.euractiv.com/ ;