UK, French and German government agencies lobbied for weaker testing. Probably because of car industry lobbyists, and all the blah blah about "we sell cars, people stay employed, economy keeps going, you get reelected.". Ah, isn't democracy beautiful...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/24/uk-franc...
With a dictator they'd just bribe him. Not like that's a solution, either.