PN MEPs vote for more cancer inducing pollutants, while saying it is committed to fighting cancer in Malta.
‘Ironically barely 24 hours after Nationalist MEPs and shadow ministers voted to allow car manufacturers to produce and market cars that exceed the EU cancer-causing pollutant limits indefinitely, another PN shadow minister, Claudette Buttigieg, tells us how the Nationalist Party is committed in the fight against cancer. Really and truly a case of cynical and shallow politics – saying one thing in Malta and acting otherwise in the European Parliament’, said AD spokesperson on energy, industry and infrastructure Ralph Cassar.
In a press statement on the issue Greens/EFA vice-president and environment spokesperson, MEP Bas Eickhout said:”The vote on the 3 of February 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 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.”
AD’s Ralph Cassar concluded:”MEPs Casa, Metsola and Commodini Cachia have shown that for all its fancy conferences about the environment, the party does not have a holistic and deep understanding of the ecology and 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.”
