Transport ministers across Europe are being warned that they need to take more action on non-compliant diesel vehicles, including removing them from sale, to curb inner-city pollution.

The letter calls for the most polluting diesel vehicles to be withdrawn from service.

It comes as part of a leaked letter from EU industry commissioner, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, seen by action group Transport & Environment, which criticises member states for not identifying the most polluting vehicles, and calls for a ‘Europeanisation’ of rules on urban diesel bans to avoid differences between cities.

The letter also advises that vehicles with NOx emissions higher than permitted under real-world conditions should be withdrawn from sale and circulation, including any Volkswagen Group vehicles which haven’t had the ‘defeat device’ software fix applied by the end of this year.

Greg Archer, clean vehicles director at T&E, said: “Diesel bans are the inevitable consequence of the toxic air in cities and 70,000 deaths caused by breathing high levels of nitrogen dioxide – much from diesel vehicles.

“The only reason not to ban diesel cars is if the levels of pollution they emit are as low as from gasoline cars. A few diesel cars on the road already achieve this but the average new diesel is still producing nine times more NOx than a gasoline car.”

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