LUXEMBOURG (CN) — An adviser to the European Union’s highest court opened the door Thursday for more lawsuits against Volkswagen over its subversion of environmental regulations.
Environmental Action Germany, or Deutsche Umwelthilfe, a nonprofit environmental and consumer-protection association based in Hanover, is fighting both the automaker and Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority, the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, over a 2016 decision that allowed manufacturers to outfit vehicles with temperature-regulating software that increase emissions.
Installation of an electronic engine controller allows cars to regulate based on outside temperature what portion of exhaust gas is redirected to the engine. Its use increases the amount of nitrogen dioxide emissions, leading Environmental Action Germany to say it qualifies as a so-called defeat device.
Indeed, approval of the engine controller in 2015 followed only a year after Volkswagen was caught using defeat devices in diesel cars to avoid emissions limitations. The scandal, which became known as Dieselgate, affected more than 11 million cars worldwide. In the U.S. alone, 500,000 million vehicles were recalled.
A 2007 EU law meanwhile requires carmakers to keep vehicles from emitting nitrogen dioxide above a certain threshold. The gas, created by the reaction of nitrogen and oxygen during fuel combustion, is a major contributor to climate change and also causes respiratory and other health problems.
German authorities argued that the environmentalists lacked standing to file a complaint because they were not directly impacted, but Advocate General Athanasios Rantos wrote Thursday for the European Court of Justice that the environmentalists should be allowed to sue. Though his opinion is nonbinding, the Court of Justice agrees with its advocate generals in about 80% of cases. A final ruling is expected later this year.
Rantos pointed to the Aarhus Convention, a 1998 treaty that allows citizens to access environmental information. “An association such as Deutsche Umwelthilfe falls not only within the scope of ‘the public’ … but also ‘the public concerned’,” the Greek judge wrote.
Volkswagen has lost a series of cases at the Court of Justice over the scandal. In 2020, the court rejected a claim from the company that the devices were protecting engines. It also concluded Volkswagen could face lawsuits outside of its home country of Germany. Another opinion from an advocate general in 2021 held that Volkswagon and Porsche had installed another type of defeat device. A final ruling in that case is expected later this year.
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