Diesel Emissions: EU Commission Has Known for Years about Manipluation

The European Commission insists that it knew nothing about diesel emissions manipulations perpetrated by Volkswagen and other automobile manufacturers. Documents obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE show otherwise.

Since at least 2010, the European Commission has been in possession of concrete evidence that automobile manufacturers were cheating on emissions values of diesel vehicles, according to a number of internal documents that SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained. The papers show that emissions cheating had been under discussion for years both within the Commission and the EU member state governments. The documents also show that the German government was informed of a 2012 meeting on the issue. The scandal first hit the headlines in 2015 when it became known that Volkswagen had manipulated the emissions of its diesel vehicles.

The records provide a rough chronology of the scandal, which reaches back to the middle of the 2000s.