BERLIN — Reacting to pressure from German regulators, Volkswagen on Thursday recalled its entire fleet of rigged diesel cars in Europe, as the carmaker scrambles to come up with a remedy for its emissions cheating.

While a broad recall has been expected, the move reflects the difficulty that Volkswagen faces in fixing the 11 million vehicles worldwide that contain a so-called defeat device, which effectively lowered emissions for testing purposes. The company is indicating that the repairs may stretch beyond the end of 2016.

Volkswagen had submitted a plan last week to German regulators, outlining repairs to three models of diesel engines that largely involved updating the vehicles’ software. But the country’s authorities considered the plan insufficient and ordered the company to recall 2.4 million vehicles on Thursday; Volkswagen later in the day adopted the German order more broadly, announcing a recall of 8.5 million diesel cars across Europe.

German regulators have given Volkswagen until the end of November to lay out the technical details of the remedy. Volkswagen said it would begin recalling and repairing the German cars in January.