Of the 11 million Volkswagen Group diesel vehicles equipped with the devices, around 8 million were sold in Europe | Fred Dufour/AFP via Getty Images Total recall fail: Europe still lagging on Dieselgate fix A November summit will aim to find out why some countries are doing such a poor job of recalling polluting cars.

Three years after the Dieselgate scandal plunged Europe's car industry into crisis, efforts to clean up the problems it exposed are lagging — with 1.8 million affected cars still on the Continent's roads.

While countries like Germany and Austria have made progress with mandatory recall programs for vehicles equipped with emissions-cheating defeat devices, others, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, haven't done as well, according to statistics collected by the European Commission and attached to a letter from Internal Market Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, obtained by POLITICO.

That's prompting the Commission to hold a summit on November 27 for EU ministers responsible for car type approvals to figure out why countries have widely diverging success rates in dealing with the issue.

Of the 11 million Volkswagen Group diesel vehicles equipped with the devices, around 8 million were sold in Europe. According to the Commission statistics, 77 percent of the affected cars in Europe have had their illegal software updated as promised by the carmaker.

"The recalls are the responsibility of the company but they need to be pushed by the national type approval authority to ensure the work is being carried out," said Greg Archer, who works on the issue at green group Transport & Environment.

Most countries have launched voluntary recall programs, according to the Commission data, with eight EU countries setting in place mandatory programs.

Bieńkowska’s letter lists the measures taken to reform the industry since 2015, part of an agreement with lawmakers in the European Parliament following their own probe, which closed in 2017.

“A lot has been done during the last three years to restore the confidence of EU citizens in the system,” Bieńkowska said in the letter to Kathleen Van Brempt, the chair of the European Parliament's now defunct emissions committee, dated October 17 and obtained by POLITICO.

EU actions include reforming type approval rules to allow independent oversight from Commission officials before new cars get permission to go on sale. As of September, a new emissions testing procedure is in force across the EU that brings results closer to real-world driving conditions, making it more difficult for carmakers to cheat.

"The European Commission unfortunately leaves the accountability questions about the past largely unanswered" — Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, Dutch Liberal MEP

But the Commission's efforts to deal with the fallout from Dieselgate are being overshadowed by deep changes convulsing the car industry — from local initiatives to ban polluting cars from city centers in many European countries to the larger question of the future of carmakers in a post-combustion engine world.

"Efforts will be needed to steer and facilitate the transition of [the] automotive industry towards zero emissions cars and connected and automated driving," Bieńkowska wrote.

The pressure on the Commission to do more was shown by a letter to Bieńkowska sent this month by the transport and environment ministers of Luxembourg, calling for Brussels to "investigate all options that would make sure that all diesel cars in the EU easily surpass the emissions standards and respect the indicated norms.”

Bieńkowska's letter to Van Brempt comes 18 months after the Parliament's emissions committee finished its work with a 100-page report setting out what the bloc needs to do to avoid another Dieselgate scandal.

“The Commission’s response is late and pretty low-key, considering the magnitude of the report’s findings,” said Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, a Dutch Liberal MEP who was on the emissions committee. "The European Commission unfortunately leaves the accountability questions about the past largely unanswered."