VW suspends lobbyist over ‘repulsive’ experiments
AUTOS
BERLIN/ FRANKFURT• Volkswagen AG suspended its chief lobbyist on Tuesday in response to reports the carmaker had sponsored tests that exposed monkeys and humans to toxic diesel fumes, methods condemned by its chief executive as repulsive.
Europe’ s largest automaker has come under fresh scrutiny after The New York Times said last week that it and German peers BMW AG and Daimler AG funded an organization called European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector ( EUGT) to commission the tests.
The report came more than two years after VW admitted to cheating U.S. diesel emissions tests, sparking the biggest business crisis in its history, and pledged sweeping changes to ensure such misconduct never happened again.
“Over the weekend we had to learn once more that there is still a long way ahead of us to regain lost trust,” VW CEO Matthias Mueller said late on Monday at a reception in Brussels in his first public remarks on the tests.
“The methods used by EUGT in the United States were wrong, they were unethical and repulsive,” he said. “I am sorry that Volkswagen was involved in the matter as one of the sponsors of EUGT.”
On Tuesday, VW’s management board accepted an offer by Thomas Steg, its chief lobbyist since 2012 and a former German government spokesman, to step aside. It appointed politics expert Jens Hanefeld as his interim replacement.
As head of sustainability topics at VW group, Steg was in charge of the EUGT and had prior knowledge of the monkey experiments but made no effort to stop them, a senior official at VW group told Reuters late on Tuesday. Steg did not respond to attempts by Reuters to contact him.
A spokesman f or VW chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said the supervisory board’s executive committee will meet next week to discuss the internal investigations and ensure such incidents will not be repeated.
“The boundaries of decent and moral conduct were clearly crossed,” said Bernd Osterloh, VW’s labour boss, adding he will leave no doubt about workers’ opposition to such tests at next week’s meeting. “It appears as if some at VW have lost their ethical and moral bearings.”
The study, conducted in 2014, was designed to defend diesel following revelations that the fuel’s exhaust fumes were carcinogenic, The New York Times reported.
Reuters could not confirm the details and purpose of the study and EUGT, which was dissolved last year, could not be reached for comment.
BMW and Daimler have also denounced the tests.
Mueller, a company veteran who became CEO after the emissions scandal broke in September 2015, has complained on several occasions that tackling VW’s closed-off corporate culture was proving tougher than expected.