I don't think that GP was ignoring it: "Of course the German government is involved in this company as shareholder and probably knew about the cheating and probably the EU laws for diesel were altered some years ago because of this company" - the point is that the EU car companies big into diesel specifically worked to have this pollution be made less critical in emissions testing...
The thing is diesel was pushed because of its low CO2 emissions and lower cost at the pump. Of course the German government wants to protect German auto companies now, but EU laws are comparatively lax on NOx emissions in part because the focus used to be entirely on CO2 emissions.
