Dieselgate committee fails launch test

Center-right group says it won’t put pressure on Europe’s car industry.

Fighting between political parties over the running of the parliamentary committee set up to look into the European Commission’s role in the Volkswagen emissions scandal threatens to turn it into a lame duck before it even holds its first meeting.

A high-ranking MEP from the European Parliament’s largest political group, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), has said his members will not allow the committee of inquiry to put Europe’s car industry under pressure.

“As politicians in the European Union, it would be stupid to attack our most successful technology — that is, diesel technology,” the MEP said, adding he did not want the committee to become a “Dieselgate” inquiry.

“We should not do the job of other [MEPs], who have other interests — [they want] to damage this technology,” the EPP MEP said.

The comments have raised the prospect that the 12-month super-inquiry, announced last month, will be toothless, in spite of having powers that go far beyond those of standard parliamentary committees.

They also suggest that the EPP, which had voted against setting up the committee, will now order its MEPs to pull their punches in order to give the car industry an easy ride through the committee.

The European Parliament tasked the 45-member committee of inquiry with investigating European carmakers’ breaches of EU rules on emissions, as well as possible failures on the part of EU member countries and the European Commission to enforce EU standards.

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The committee, known by the acronym EMIS, had been scheduled to hold its first meeting earlier this month, but after several delays it now appears to have been postponed until the morning of March 2.

All the parliamentary parties have been able to agree on so far is who should chair the first meeting, French center-right MEP Françoise Grossetête, who will then oversee the appointment of the committee’s key positions.

The committee was established after the discovery that Volkswagen had used software to cheat on carbon emission tests. It is the first committee of inquiry since 2006.

Unlike so-called “special committees,” such as the TAXE committee looking into the “Luxleaks” affair, committees of inquiry have strong powers similar to a national court.

The EPP’s comments have angered members of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Parliament’s second largest political group, which is currently fighting the EPP tooth and nail for the committee’s three key positions — a clash which has delayed the committee’s first meeting.

Insiders say the EPP is claiming both the position of committee chair and at least one of the two key rapporteur positions which are on offer — something the S&D is fighting. The front-runners for the top job are Kathleen Van Brempt, for the S&D, and Krišjānis Kariņš, for the EPP.

“The EPP claims that there are rules, that they are entitled to claim the chair — but there are no such rules,” said Ismail Ertug, a German MEP who is coordinating the S&D’s work on the committee.

“If you take the TAXE committee into account, the chair there was given to the EPP,” Ertug said. “It is hard to understand why any new committee should be automatically handed over to the largest parliamentary group as well.”

Negotiations between the two groups will continue until next week, sources say.

Tajani’s shadow

The EPP’s determination to ensure that the committee steer clear of the broader “Dieselgate” scandal has led those working on the case within the S&D to question whether the center-right wants to shield one of its own MEPs, Antonio Tajani.

Tajani, who was European commissioner for industry between 2009 and 2014, oversaw the Commission’s interactions with the car industry, before rejoining Parliament ahead of the 2014 European elections.

“That’s absurd — I don’t need protection from anything or anyone,” Tajani told POLITICO. “If anything, I am the one who could attack.”

Tajani, who is a vice president of Parliament, said that he has been able to prove that he responded responsibly to early signs of trouble and was, at the time, open with MEPs about what was going on. “If I am called to testify [before the committee] I will have no problem,” he said.

Tajani, who is not a member of the committee of inquiry, is widely viewed as a possible successor to Martin Schulz as president of the European Parliament, and is a leading EPP figure.

Meanwhile, the S&D says it has no intention of using the committee as a stick with which to beat the European car industry or undermine diesel technology. “For us, it is not a committee to use against any specific manufacturer, but to investigate whether the rules were enforced properly,” said Ertug.

“The EPP is right when it says that the legal system is already investigating what happened,” Ertug said. “What we need to do is find out whether there was a failure on the governance side.”