Volkswagen Suspends Top Lobbyist Amid Inquiry Into Diesel Tests on Monkeys<br />Mr. Vella said 400,000 people in the European Union died prematurely each year as a result of air pollution from all sources “because of a massive, widespread failure to address the problem.” He expressed frustration<br />that “a sense of urgency is not always evident across member states.”<br />The experiments that preceded Mr. Steg’s suspension were conducted at a laboratory in Albuquerque for the European Research Group on Environment<br />and Health in the Transport Sector, known by its German initials, E. U.G.<br />The commission said it planned to pursue legal action against the nine countries at the European<br />Union’s highest court for their chronic failure to enforce air quality standards<br />Over the last 20 years, diesel cars have taken a strong hold on the European market, thanks in large part to regulations<br />that made them cheaper to fill up than gasoline-powered cars.<br />Germany has often balked at efforts to tighten regulations on auto emissions<br />and to improve enforcement, and the latest uproar has put Ms. Merkel on the defensive as she struggles to form a coalition government after winning a narrow plurality in elections late last year.<br />Karmenu Vella, the European commissioner responsible for environmental matters, met with ministers from the nine offending countries in Brussels on Tuesday and said afterward<br />that they had failed to present credible plans for reducing pollution.<br />FRANKFURT — Volkswagen suspended its chief lobbyist on Tuesday amid a growing furor over experiments on monkeys<br />that were meant to promote the virtues of diesel-powered vehicles, but now threaten to further undermine the German car industry and to increase political instability in Berlin.
