(Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen AG is set to escape fines from theGerman Transport Ministry after cheating on emissions tests foryears, despite growing public ire over the lack of compensation forEuropean owners of tainted vehicles.

It’s sufficient for Volkswagen to fix diesel vehicles in Germanyso that they meet legal requirements, Transport Ministry spokesmanIngo Strater said Wednesday. Meanwhile, Bild, Germany’s most-readnewspaper, took Volkswagen to task for failing to compensate the2.4 million affected owners in its home country amid growingdiscontent after Chief Executive Officer Matthias Mueller rejectedcompensation in Europe.

“It’s not acceptable that the government doesn’t take any realconsequences from the emissions scandal and gives a blank check fortricks and deceptions,” said Oliver Krischer, a member of Germany’sBundestag from the opposition Green Party who is leading aparliamentary investigation committee. “It needs to be explainedwhy companies in Germany don’t pay fines. It’s also not OK thatEuropean drivers are treated worse than American VW drivers.”

While Volkswagen is paying affected U.S. owners as much as$10,000 each as part of a $15.3 billion settlement, Germany hastaken a far softer stance over the manufacturer rigging vehicles toturn on full pollution controls only during official tests.Germany, which is closely tied to Volkswagen via the state of LowerSaxony’s 20% stake and the political influence of the automakinggiant, approved a low-cost fix that consists of a software upgradeand, in some cases, a piece of pipe with mesh on one end.

Second class?

Instead of payments, “German customers get a letter and anappointment at the workshop to fix the cheating diesels,” Bildwrote in story published Wednesday. “Are German customers secondclass?” Volkswagen declined to comment beyond Mueller’s comments inthe newspaper interview.

The reasons for the wide disparity in the handling of the crisisstems from equally large differences in legal and regulatorystructures between the U.S. and the European Union. The lack ofclass-action lawsuits is a major disadvantage for Europeanconsumers, undermining their leverage in negotiations. Europe alsodoesn’t clearly ban switch-off devices — the bit of software at theheart of the scandal — and allows them to be used if they helpprotect the engine.

Germany has also been at pains to show emissions issues gobeyond Volkswagen, strong arming automakers in April to upgrade630,000 vehicles to fix temperature-control setups that pushed theboundaries of regulation. It also tried to put pressure on FiatChrysler Automobiles NV, but was brushed off by Italy, which hasauthority over the company’s European vehicles.

“There’s an attempt to protect Volkswagen to a degree, asVolkswagen could be pushed to a breaking point if the same criteriaapplied in Germany as in the U.S.,” said Stefan Bratzel, directorof the Center of Automotive Management at the University of AppliedSciences in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. “The Transport Ministry isalso damaged by the whole affair, so they want it to goaway.”

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