Brussels, 20/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - The turn of the crank lashes back at Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas. European ministers have turned up their noses at his proposals aimed at raising the minimum requirements for technical roadworthiness inspections. With the adoption of their general partial approach on Thursday 20 December, they maintained status quo by not increasing the frequency of periodical technical inspections of vehicles and by not submitting a larger range of vehicles, as the Commission advocated in its revision of Directive 2009/40/EC.
Transport ministers reached a compromise on this issue, considerably watering down the Commission's ambitions. It will not be a question of making technical inspections compulsory every year for all light commercial vehicles of over four years of age (compared to two years at present), or for older cars. Neither will vehicle inspections be imposed on motorcycles, mopeds or trailers (except for fast-moving tractors), a point on which France is keen. European rules in force therefore remain almost unchanged. Ministers have not wanted a regulation. The legal form of the directive will be safeguarded, giving member states greater freedom in application of the text. The latter may still keep or introduce stricter requirements than those foreseen in the EU legislation. The Romanian delegation has ensured that checks may be carried out on vehicles registered in another member state. The Belgian delegation has wanted to maintain sanctions for mileage fraud. Member states have reworded parts of the text connected to the training of inspectors and inspection material, according to the Commission's reasoning.
The Czech delegation, without wishing to criticise the value of the Commission's proposal, has nonetheless raised the fact that it would have been sufficient to amend the initial directive. It is true that the Council has once more largely weakened a Commission legislative proposal. The instigator, Siim Kallas, regretted moreover that the Council had not been more ambitious. However, the commissioner preferred to keep a sense of proportion, putting it down to the fact that negotiations between 27 member states are never easy. He said he was pleased with the compromise and wanted to take the project forward.
The project mainly aims to track down the technical failings of vehicles, and hence avoid a large number of road accidents. However, during the Transport Council, the German delegation was highly critical of the Commission's hypothesis, seeing little connection between the two elements. (MD/transl.jl)