Updated | PN MEPs 'vote for more' cancer inducing pollutants

The Nationalist Party claims to be committed in the fight against cancer and yet its MEPs voted to allow car manufacturers to produce vehicles that exceed pollutant limits, Alternattiva Demokratika said today.

“Ironically, barely 24 hours after the PN MEPs voted to allow car manufacturers to produce and market cars that exceed the EU cancer-causing pollutant limits indefinitely, another shadow minister, Claudette Buttigieg, tells us how the PN is committed in the fight against cancer,” AD spokesperson Ralph Cassar said.

“Really and truly a case of cynical and shallow politics – saying one thing in Malta and acting otherwise in the European Parliament.”

Cassar said that PN MEP David Casa and shadow ministers Therese Comodini Cachia and Roberta Metsola have shown that “for all its fancy conferences about the environment”, the PN does not have a holistic and deep understanding of the ecology.

“When push comes to shove chooses to favour, together with the notoriously pro-multinational European People’s Party, the European Conservatives and UKIP, the strong car manufacturer lobby, including fraudsters Volkswagen. All this to the detriment of the health of the people of Malta and the EU. In Malta they speak about cancer treatment, while in the EU Parliament they vote to let car manufacturers spew dangerous amounts of cancer causing pollutants.”

In a press statement on the issue Greens/EFA vice-president and environment spokesperson, MEP Bas Eickhout said: "The vote is license to pollute for European car makers. The 'conformity factors' decision essentially overwrites EU limits on pollutants from cars by introducing major loopholes that would allow cars to pollute at far above the legal limits. As a direct response to the 'diesel-gate' scandal, this is a serious blow to the credibility of the EU to regulate the car industry. It is also a slap in the face to the European Parliament's powers as a co-legislator, as it is de facto rewriting EU rules that were agreed with and voted on by the parliament."

“However, the real losers from the vote are cities and urban areas which are struggling with the health consequences of air pollution, and the hundreds of thousands of European citizens who face severe health problems resulting from this. Those MEPs who failed to support the objection must now also share responsibility for the failure to act on the silent killer that is air pollution.”

PN MEPs react:

"The EPP Group MEPs voted to significantly cut pollution emissions by diesel cars in the short term. The alternative was vetoing the agreement which would have led to creating a legal vacuum for at least two years combined with uncertainty for car owners and the industry and absolutely no progress for the environment," MEP David Casa said.
 
"On the contrary, now the EU can rapidly implement the on-road tests, which together with the planned Commission proposals for a major overhaul of the EU type approval framework, will make it very difficult for the car industry to circumvent the  emissions requirements.

"We would happily have a debate of ideas with Alternattiva on these issues and others but to reduce the issue to having voted in favour or against cancer shows lack of respect, especially on World Cancer Day."