European consumer organizations ask for Volkswagen to compensate its customers following the emissions scandal revealed last September when the company admitted it had cheated U.S. tests by using a software known as “defeat devices” to mask nitrogen oxide emissions.

In the United States, Volkswagen has promised to offer a $1,000 compensation to its clients.

But in Europe, VW officials are not willing to do the same thing. As they said, they will repair the vehicles to remove illegal software, but they are not planning to pay consumers compensation, claiming that they have not suffered any loss.

A few days ago, Europe’s Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska, raised this issue during a meeting with VW’s Chief Executive Matthias Mueller in Brussels. She also wrote to him on January 15 with a list of demands.

On the top of the list is that the estimated 8.5 million European owners of VW cars fitted with illegal software, out of 11 million worldwide, should be compensated, as Reuters reports.

“I would like to ask you to reconsider your stance regarding compensation and reflect on the ways to offer compensation also to the European consumers,” Bienkowska says in the letter.

“The issue of compensation goes beyond the difference in the legal set-up between the U.S. and the EU and plays a fundamental role in viewing VW as a responsible and trustworthy company,” Bienkowska adds.

Volkswagen, though, claims that the US market cannot be compared with Europe’s. This is because, for example, US customers “will probably have to wait longer in order a solution to be found”, while VW officials have not yet clarified the conditions for the withdrawal of about 100,000 vehicles, contrary to what applies in Europe. “For each market we anticipate a different package of measures,” the company explained.