European Parliament Environment Committee votes through stricter laws on pollutants from road vehicles

As the Volkswagen emissions scandal continues, the European Parliament's Environment Committee has voted on a proposal to update the EU's Euro5/6 regulation, which limits pollutants from road vehicles. A proposed amendment by the Greens/EFA group, which is part of a cross-party compromise in the vote, was adopted with a large majority.

This amendment means that the test procedure for measuring pollutant emissions based on actual driving conditions (the so called Real Driving Emissions test) should be in place for 2017 and any deviation from the pollutant limit values should only be to reflect the uncertainty of the testing method.

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for south-east England, said: "For too long European car makers have been ducking the EU's rules to enable them to keep their highly polluting cars on the road.

"The huge scandal with Volkswagen on car pollution rules must focus the minds of EU politicians and the British government.

"Air pollution kills tens of thousands in the UK every year. The government must urgently do more to combat air pollution as we are already breaching our EU air pollution targets. With the added unchecked emissions from Volkswagen cars, I worry about how much worse the situation actually is."

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